


All Alone in the Night Redux

by Kelaine (Ellynne)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), The Night Land - William Hope Hodgson
Genre: Anti-Hook, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2019-07-28 16:39:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 33
Words: 65,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16245647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellynne/pseuds/Kelaine
Summary: For those unhappy with how the Underworld story went, a completely different take. The people of Storybrooke are trapped in the Underworld. The barrier that protects them from the darkness is failing. Belle may be able to save them. But, all magic comes with a price. What will trusting the Dark One cost? And will she even survive to pay it?I never abandoned this story, but some problems were only going to be fixed with a big rewrite. The first few chapters are the same except for some editing. Bigger changes start around chapter fourteen.





	1. The Night Land

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle lives in a dying world where shadows and monsters wait to devour the last of her people when their defenses finally fail. Then, one day, a traveler gives her a message. There is someone who can save them.
> 
> If only she can find him.
> 
> And, if only he isn't the worst monster of them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is based on the 1912 horror classic "The Night Land" by William Hope Hodgson. "The Night Land" takes place millions of years in a future where the sun has gone out and last remnants of humanity live in a giant pyramid called The Last Redoubt protected and powered by a barrier called the Earth current. The land outside is inhabited by monsters and demons waiting for the inevitable day when the current dies and they can destroy the last survivors inside. I am taking liberties with the geography and several other details, although I've kept some of the nearly Victorian culture.
> 
> A slight warning to anyone thinking of reading The Night Land. It's a great story but it has some of the worst writing to ever see print in the English language. Reading it is also enough to make you wonder if Hodgson ever actually spoke to a female human being.

One of the Silent Ones walked along their road through the eternal night.  The Great Pyramid, lit by the Barrier that surrounded it, was far enough away that human eyes could not have made out any details.  Yet, the hooded figure paused, looking towards the great edifice, as a small figure ran out its gates.

This was unusual.  The dwellers in the Pyramid sent out their explorers and adventurers from time to time.  Usually lone travelers, sometimes small bands.  Some returned, some did not, suffering death or worse.  But, these would-be-heroes moved with caution as they passed the protection of the Pyramid and the glowing Barrier that surrounded it.  They never ran.

Yet, this one did.  The Silent One watched curiously.  To the best of its knowledge, those who hid inside the Pyramid did nothing worse to their enemies—their human enemies—than kill them. The Night was not so kind.  No matter what punishment they fled, no human—no sane human—would trade the Pyramid’s safety for the outside.

Perhaps this one was not sane?  Perhaps possessed or bespelled?  Now and then, Whispers found their way inside the Pyramid.  Prey could be lured out, though the Silent Ones normally sensed it when such things happened.

The traveler was clad in the dull, gray armor of its kind.  It carried a diskos, their favored weapon, a metal staff with a sharp blade at the end that could be made to glow with a terrible light.  The light itself was enough to drive off some of the lesser creatures.  The Silent Ones were not so easily frightened.  They did not  _fear_ the Pyramid and its powers.  They only waited, patiently, keeping to their own paths till the appointed hour.  

The traveler also carried a pack so it was armed and had supplies.  Bespelled or not, it had some rationality left.

It stopped once it had put some distance between itself and the Pyramid.  Turning back, it saw there was no pursuit.  It paused to take its bearings, choosing its course.

It began making its way to the Road of the Silent Ones.

A rational choice, the watcher knew.  Its kind didn’t kill travelers there.  Or feed upon souls. 

Except when they did. 

The traveler was headed for a piece of the road only a little farther ahead.  The Silent One drifted towards it. 

X

Belle hadn’t known what to think when the guard came to get her in the Hall of Records to tell her Jefferson was asking for her.  She knew Jefferson.  He was one of the Monstruwacans, the guardians who kept watch over the Pyramid, but he had often been in the Hall.  He was the one normally sent by the Master Monstruwacan to deliver copies of their reports or to request information from the past.  But, not long ago, the news had been spread through the Pyramid that Jefferson had requested permission to go out into the Night, the land outside the Pyramid.

It was always a grave thing when such a request was made, and there were strict laws. No one who had not passed his twenty-first year was allowed out.  The man who made the request was evaluated, to make sure he was sane, and was given special training and preparation.  He was also given a very thorough, graphic understanding of what had happened to some who had been reckless enough to go outside.

“He.” It was always a “he.”  That was the other part of the law: No female was allowed into the Night—not ever.

But, the law allowed a widower with a young daughter to risk his life and soul.  Belle didn’t understand why.

At least, he’d returned, wounded but alive.  Or alive for now. 

He’d returned, Belle reminded herself.  His soul was his own.  No matter what else happened, she had to be grateful for that.

The Master of the Hall of Records gave her permission to leave.  Belle got her diskos and followed the guard.  Unlike Belle, the guard, of course, was in full armor, his diskos fully lit, though they were fairly safe so deep in the Great Pyramid

“How is he?” Belle asked. 

“He’ll live,” the guard said.  “I think.  The Healers can tell you more.”

Meaning that was all he knew or all he was allowed to tell her.  Belle tried a different tack.  “Is his daughter there?”  Grace wouldn’t leave her father’s side if they weren’t sure he would get well, Belle was certain of it.

“She hasn’t been told he’s back yet,” the guard said. “He wished to speak to you first.”

Belle tried to keep her expression neutral, but it was almost impossible.  Everyone knew how close and protective Jefferson was of Grace.  Jefferson was Belle’s friend—a good friend—but nothing more.  Why did he need to see her before his daughter even knew he was alive? 

The guards in the Halls of Healing let Belle through.  She murmured the Word as she passed each of them, barely pausing to hear them say it back. 

The Word.  It was their first protection, the one even children were taught to say.  Belle had thought of it as magic as a child, once she understood its power. 

Her mother had shaken her head.  “There’s no such thing as magic, little one,” she told her.  “Not in all the world.”

No such thing as magic.  Belle hadn’t understood that then.  Light and dark were matters of science, and what humans called the soul could be measured and weighed.  The Word was the distillation of that knowledge.  Only humans with uncorrupted souls could say it or even think it.  Sometimes, the sound alone was enough to drive back the Night Dwellers.  Even when it didn’t, it weakened them—and it revealed anything that pretended to be human but wasn’t by their silence. In the rest of the Great Pyramid, it was the first thing people said to each other when they met.  Here, in the Halls of Healing, it was a constant murmur.  Years of training kicked in, and Belle found herself unconsciously joining the litany, repeating it back each time she heard it.

Most of the sick and injured were in a single room with beds on either side.  Jefferson, however, was in a small alcove separate from the others with his own guards.  He was one of the honored travelers, after all.  He had ventured into the Night and returned alive and uncorrupted.

He had also been injured by the Night Dwellers.  Those that could make their way into the Pyramid would be drawn by the scent of his blood.  He needed special protection—and the other patients, in their weakened states, needed to be protected from whatever dangers he might draw. 

Still, the Halls of Healing were among the safest left in the Pyramid.  The guards were wary but not afraid—not  _too_ afraid.  They stood back as Belle reached Jefferson’s bedside.  No one was ever alone in the Pyramid, of course—not  _really_ alone.  But, the guards gave the two of them as much privacy as they could. 

Jefferson was sickly pale where he wasn’t bruised or covered in bandages.  His eyes were almost too swollen to open.  He was so battered, Belle didn’t dare touch him for fear of the pain it would cause.

“Jefferson?” she asked uncertainly.  Could he hear her?  Was he even conscious?

Jefferson’s swollen eyes opened a crack.  He managed a weak, painful smile.  “Hey . . . Bluebell . . . good to see you,”

 _Bluebell._ The nickname was a scholar’s joke.  The last ornamental flower had died over a hundred years ago, but Jefferson had enjoyed looking through books of plants and that mythical time called  _the daylight world_ _._   For some reason, the bluebell had struck his fancy and become her name.

“Good to see you, too,” Belle told him and said the Word.

Jefferson’s eyes narrowed for a long, silent moment.  Belle felt her heart thud against her chest.  Why didn’t he say it?  He must have said it before he was allowed back into the Pyramid.  Nothing that couldn’t prove its humanity was allowed here,  _nothing._

Unless—unless Jefferson had been dying, unless there was something inside him draining him away and waiting for its chance. . . .

Jefferson spoke the Word, and Belle forced herself to relax.  “Why did you do it, Jefferson?” Belle said.  “Why get me instead of Grace?” She meant to keep her voice calm, but thinking of Grace and everything Jefferson had risked flared her anger. “Why go into the Night?” she demanded. “What did you expect to find?  What would happen to Grace if you died?”

“Grace . . . is why I . . . had to go. . . .” Jefferson’s voice trailed off.  For a moment, Belle thought he’d drifted into unconsciousness or sleep.

Instead, he took a long, shuddering breath, forcing himself to go on.  He glanced at the guards and spoke in barely more than a whisper.  “You’ve . . . read the records, Bluebell. . . .  The Barrier . . . is weakening. . . . When it falls . . . inside . . . outside . . . won’t matter.”

Belle dug her nails into her palms.  There had been a time when the Pyramid was  _safe_.  Nothing worse than Whispers from outside could make it in, and those were easy to detect.  Over time,  _things—_ weak and insubstantial, but  _real_ —had begun to find their way into the Pyramid.  They were paltry and frail.  But, enough attacks, even by things that were paltry and frail, could kill. 

The attacks had increased even since Belle was a girl.  Now,  _everyone_  was trained to use the diskos and no one went anywhere without it.  They all took their turns at guard duty and had armor to wear when they did it.

When the Barrier failed, the Night Dwellers would swarm the Pyramid.  The people would fight but they all knew how it would end.

They did the only thing they could.  They went from day to day and hoped that the end was still a long way off.  When it came, they hoped to die well—and not to face anything worse than death.

And they tried their best not to think of it—or speak of it.

Jefferson was injured, Belle reminded herself.  From the look of him, he’d been lucky to make it back.  She didn’t chide him for saying what should  _never_ be said.  He was battered and sick.  He needed to be humored. “You’re telling me you found an answer?”

Jefferson nodded.  He looked around carefully, but the guards were watching for things that might attack.  They only glanced, now and then, at Jefferson and Belle, to make sure they were still all right.  Reaching beneath his blankets, he pulled out a small, white sack with a golden drawstring.  Belle didn’t recognize the cloth.  It had a silkiness that reminded her of her mother’s hair.  But, the gold. . . .  Belle ran a finger along it, with the strange feeling she should know what it was.

“Find . . . him. . . .” Jefferson whispered.  “Tell him. . . .  I don’t know . . . who locked us up . . . in this world.  But . . . tell him. . . .”  It was getting harder and harder for Jefferson to speak.  “He’ll . . . protect you. . . .  But, you have to tell him . . . tell him I found you . . . tell him . . . protect Grace. . . .”

He slumped back, his eyes closing.  Belle gasped and jerked back, calling for help.  No less than three Healers hurried over.  They murmured the Word almost like a mantra.  Healers frequently did.  Evil things were too often the cause of strange ailments.  The Word drove them back.  Belle found herself repeating the Word with them even as she got out of their way.

It attracted the attention of one of the Healers.  “He’s all right,” the Healer told her.  A tall, fair-haired man, it took her a moment to remember his name.  Victor, that was it.  “He’s exhausted.  I’m surprised he managed to stay awake this long, but he insisted he had to speak to you.”  The Healer looked her over in a speculative way that made Belle blush.

“Is he—Will he get better?” Belle asked.

The Healer nodded.  “With proper care and time.  He needs rest more than anything.  You don’t need to worry.  But, you should go, now.  We’ll summon you if there’s a change.”

Belle nodded, taking her diskos and hurrying off.  Despite the weapon in her hand and the other people she passed in the corridors, she felt vulnerable as she made her way back to the Hall of Records and found herself wishing for her armor.

Once she returned to the Hall of Records, the Master wanted her report on Jefferson.  Belle wanted time to think over what Jefferson had said, not be interrogated by the Master, but it was his right.  Belle stood at attention while he questioned her, a scribe sitting by to take notes.

The Master, of course, wanted to know everything.  What injuries did Jefferson have?  How extensive were they?  Were the Healers taking any special precautions? 

“Did he speak to you?” the Master asked.

“A little,” Belle said. “He was very confused.  I’m not sure I understood what he was saying.  I gathered he . . . he hoped his quest would benefit his daughter.”

“Were those his exact words?”

“He said it was to protect Grace.  Or maybe he was asking me to protect Grace.  I—I’m not sure.”  She thought of the strange things Jefferson had said and shook her head.  “I didn’t understand him.”

The Master, who had spoken to other travelers and read their records, nodded.  “He may make more sense when he recovers.  But, why did he summon you?  I hadn’t thought you were particularly close.” 

Belle wondered if the Master spoke from scholarly interest or if he were digging for gossip.  Either way, all she could do was shrug helplessly.  “We’re friends, nothing more,” she said. “Maybe it was because I helped him search the records before he went out.  Maybe . . . he was confused when we spoke.  Maybe it made sense to an injured man.”  And one who had sounded half-mad, even to Belle.

The Master nodded understandingly.  “Disorientation is common for those who return.”  He looked at her speculatively.  “Do you think it’s possible his feelings for you are deeper than you realized before he left?”

Belle’s hand tightened on the diskos.  It was a logical question, she told herself.  And the Master of the Hall of Records only cared for getting the words written down accurately, not for the embarrassment he caused.  Or that was what she had to tell herself. “I don’t know, Master.  Possibly.”

“Hmm.  Well, it will no doubt be made clear in time.”

That was the end of the interview.  Belle made her way back to her desk, half-relieved, half-guilty.  The Scholars believed in accuracy.  There had been times in the past where their survival depended on the Archives.  People died because of secrets and lies.  Belle had a duty to show the Master what Jefferson had given her.

But, Jefferson had chanced the Night to bring back the small bag he’d put in her hand and whatever secret he thought it contained.

_The Barrier is weakening.  When it fails, inside, outside won’t matter._

Short of going into old, abandoned levels of the pyramid, being alone was impossible.  A desk with stacks of books and papers was the closest Belle could come.  She shifted a few to hide what she was about to do.  Making sure no one was looking at her, Belle slipped the small sack out of her robe and opened it, her fingers brushing once again against the gold and feeling that sense of almost remembering.  Two things slipped out of it.  One was a tiny wheel made of gold.

 _A spinning wheel,_ Belle thought, not knowing where the name came from or what it meant.  She must be half-remembering something from one of the far-too-many books she’d read.

The other was something impossible, something that hadn’t existed in over a hundred years.

The blood-red blossom of a rose lay in her hand against the gold.


	2. Belle dreams about an impossible world.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle dreams about an impossible world.

There was light. All around Belle, soft and golden, the world glowed with gentle warmth. Looking up, the ceiling seemed to stretch to an infinite distance, a vault made to house some monstrous, mountain-like creature. But, there was no terror here, none of the horrible dread that ate her when she looked out on the Night beyond the Pyramid—and could feel the Night looking back. The infinite dome was a deep, cerulean blue, the color of some long dead flower or lost gem.

 _Sky,_ she thought, not knowing where the word came from but feeling it was right. The great ceiling was called  _sky._

She walked across something soft, as if blankets and sleeping pallets had been laid across the hard floor. It was strange, green stuff. Belle knelt down and looked at it, running her finger along it. The floor, she saw, was actually dark brown, oddly moist beneath her fingers. The green sprung up out of it, softer and smoother than paper, not unlike the cloth of the strange sack Jefferson had given her, though thinner and stiffer.

There were strange sounds, like and unlike music, a cheerful cacophony. Belle got up and walked further. She came to a place where the green stuff ended abruptly, cut off by a shallow trench where something strange and glittering lay. Belle's first thought was the creepers with their slime covered, chitinous hides. But this was clearer, glass-like. Its shelled scales rose and fell, almost pulsing. That was where part almost-music she heard was coming from.

She couldn't see a head or limbs. Was it some kind of worm or serpent? Belle didn't move, wondering if it had seen her and how quickly it could attack. For the first time, she realized she didn't have her diskos. She was facing a nightmare and had nothing to defend herself.

Except it wasn't a nightmare.  It dawned on her that this wasn’t some strange, glittering monster.  It was water. The pulsing shakes were ripples, like the flow of water from a faucet or (the image came strangely to mind) when water carelessly spilled over the rim of a cup (impossible, it never happened. Cups were made so no a drop of precious water was ever wasted. But, the image of a cup with a chip edge was still there in her mind's eye).

So much water all in one place, spilled and _flowing._ If all the storage tanks of the Pyramid were cracked open, was there enough to run so endlessly?

Then, Belle saw the creatures flashing  _inside_ the water. Some were spotted white and orange and the same dark brown as the moist floor beneath her feet. Some were a burning orange-red. Like fire in the alchemist-scholars' labs, if fire could be warm and welcoming. She thought of the flower Jefferson had given her. None of the flowers she had read of in the histories had flickered or danced as these creatures did, but she could think of no other word to describe them.

 _Fish._ The name popped into Belle's mind. These were  _fish._ Water moving through a narrow trench, that had a name as well:  _stream—_ **a** _stream,_ as if there could be many such impossible things.

And the stuff she stood on was  _grass_  and  _earth._ The music that wasn't music and wasn't the stream, that was  _birdsong._ It was likely coming from the twisted growths she saw beyond the  _stream,_ _growths t_ hat should be monstrous but weren't. She knew their name too. They were  _trees._

For the first time, Belle looked at herself. Instead of the nondescript robes of a scholar, she wore a  _skirt_  and matching  _vest_ as blue as the  _sky_ above her. She had a  _blouse_ of thin, white cloth with barely any sleeves, yet she didn't feel cold. Looking down at her feet, she saw she was wearing impractical,  _sky_ -colored shoes that looked as pretty as a flower or a  _fish._

"Lollygagging about, are you?"

Belle started. A man had come up behind her. His clothes were as strange as hers. He wore a gold shirt with wide sleeves gathered at the wrist.  _Like Jefferson's bag,_ she thought, recognizing the cloth.  _Silk_ , it was called  _silk._

Over it, he wore a  _vest_  of red  _embroidered_ with gold ( _embroidery_. An image flitted through her mind of hours of careful, skillful work, like an artist drawing but done with a sliver of needle instead of a pen). He wore a tangled  _cravat_  at his throat and trousers of  _leather_ ( _leather._ For some reason she thought of creepers, truly and finally dead, their still limbs being stripped of their shells). He wore boots, also of  _leather_ , laced up with ties that must take hours to get right.

"Well, well, enough of that. If I'd known a few, tweeting birdies—" he made flamboyant gesture that somehow indicated 'tweeting birdies,' "—would distract you, I'd never have let the annoying things in."

"You let them in?" She meant it as a question but it came out as something else: smug, knowing. It sounded as though she were proving a point.

Flirting with him, Belle thought, aghast. She sounded as though she were  _flirting_ with him.

"I thought the racket they made was a little less annoying than hearing you  _whine_ about how quiet it is—not that it has been, since you arrived. It's a wonder I get any work done at all with you always underfoot. Now, come here and sit down. I have a list of chores for you today—if you can stop staring at fish long enough to get to any of them."

He turned around and marched off to a small table that had somehow appeared on the grass, two chairs beside it. They were metal painted white, worked in unfamiliar, elegant patterns.

 _Filigreed_ , Belle thought.

He told her to fix his  _tea_ , a drink made with hot water and dried leaves, which she did, adding a gold liquid called _honey_ and a bright yellow slice of something called _lemon_   before handing it to him. He took a sip, shooting her a quick glance over the cup's rim (the rim was chipped. Liquid could spill from this cup.  But, he drank carefully, not losing a drop). The glance made her think of a child, a naughty little boy not wanting to get caught paying attention. When his eyes met hers, he became flustered. "Well, there's  _one_ thing you can do right," he said, taking another quick sip of  _tea_. "Now, that list of things to do today, you'll be working in the great hall—don't disturb me. You know how I hate for you to disturb me. Just—just act as though you aren't even there. . . ." He gave her another, secret glance, shy and uncertain.

"Belle."

There was a man standing behind her. His voice was like the man's beside her only deeper, less teasing and childlike. She turned and saw man dressed in somber black. He was the same as the man beside her—but different. She realized she didn't know what the man drinking tea looked like. She could remember every inch of his clothes, his gestures, the sound of his voice—but the shape of his face, the color of his eyes, those were gone. Belle could remember every detail of the way his hands had flashed about as he mocked the  _birdies_  singing in the trees but couldn't recall a single detail of them.  Were his nails long or short? Were his hands rough, wrinkled, smooth? She didn't know.

All she knew was that this man was like him but not like him. He looked at her with deep, expressive eyes full of sadness and pain. But, staring right into them, she didn't even know what color they were.

"Come back to me," the man said. "I tried, sweetheart. I'm so sorry. Please, come back to me."

X

Belle woke with a start. She was in her bunk in the dormitory. Ruby, on shift for guard, was suddenly beside her, already on alert, her weapon ready.

"Belle, what's wrong?"

Belle shook her head. Everyone took their shift for guard in the dorm, of course, but Ruby was a  _real_ guard. She'd even drawn  _gate_  duty, something unheard of for a woman (only the inner gate. The Seven watched the outer gate. The Seven might stay within the relative safety of the Pyramid, but there was always the  _chance_  they might be forced outside to drive off danger. The law was absolute: No female—not  _ever_ —went out into the Night. Not even a warrior as gifted as Ruby).

"A nightmare," Belle told her. "I—I saw Jefferson today."

"Oh," Ruby said, relaxing. "Right. That was bad." She said the Word. Belle said it back. Ruby relaxed some more (she never relaxed  _completely_ , that's why she was a guard). Scanning the room again, looking for danger among the sleeping women, Ruby shifted her grip on her diskos. "Try to get some sleep," she said. "I've got to make the rounds."

Belle nodded. Ruby wouldn't break discipline to ask about the dream or talk about Jefferson, much as she might want to—this was Ruby after all, the best guard in the Pyramid, even if she was a woman. She had discipline like iron when she was on duty.

 _Because bad things happen when guards relax too much,_ Belle thought. They all knew what was out in the Night, just waiting for a chance to get in.

She lay back, thinking of the golden wheel and the impossible flower Jefferson had given her. She should report them. Even if they weren't evil, they were from outside. They weren't safe to have around.

She pictured the flower, red petals around its golden heart. The gold wheel spun in her mind. Half-dreaming, the wheel changed, becoming something like a pot or a helmet, only made of stiff cloth. Jefferson was spinning it around and reaching in.

"Dark One," he whispered. "Dark One, she's here. Help me. I can get her to you, but help me. Help my Grace."

He pulled out his hand, holding the bag of  _silk_ with its drawstring of gold.

_Come._

Belle's eyes flew open but she kept still, not wanting to attract the attention of Ruby or another guard.

The voice in her mind spoke again.

_Come._

Hesitantly, uncertain, Belle thought the Word.

She had a sense of something being surprised—but not hurt or driven back.

Had it not known she was human? Had it not expected her to answer?

It sent the Word back to her.

 _Who are you?_ Belle asked silently.

There was another pause. Words were dredged up from her memories. Or that was what they felt like, echoes from the past.

 _I can save you,_ the memory said.

_I can save your little town._

Then, she felt words again, words she was sure were being spoken now, in the present.

_Come to me._


	3. Her Mother's Sword

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle has to make a decision.

Memories. 

It must be something about worry, Belle thought, that made memories seem thin and unreal, faded stories that had happened to someone else.

_We are both. . . ._

Was that something she’d read in the archives?  She couldn’t remember.  It had been something about wondering which was real, the world of dreams or the world of waking.  We are made of both, the writer had said.  Both were real.  Neither was whole without the other.

If that was so, why did the waking world, the world of the Pyramid, seem so thin and hollow to her?

Belle thought of her mother.   _Those_ memories felt solid and real.  Her mother’s smile, her laughter, the books she had read to Belle as a child.  If some of the other details were blurry, well, that was normal for childhood memories, wasn’t it?  The memory of her mother’s love, that was clear and strong.

Belle’s mother had taught her to always use the Word.  When she was little, she hadn’t understood why.  It was just what people said when they met.  Her mother taught her to make the different marks that meant the Word, too.  It was different than other writing.  Other writing was letters that meant sounds.  The Word . . .  Belle could say it, she could  _think_ it, but she couldn’t think of the sounds it made.  When she tried to write it with letters, all she got were scribbles.

“It’s a human thing,” her mother told her.  “Only people with human souls can say it.  Demons can’t.  Even paper can’t hold it.”

“Is it magic?” Belle asked. 

Her mother had shook her head sadly.  “There’s no such thing as magic, little one.  I wish there were.”

Attacks had been fewer in those days.  Belle had been almost four before she understood the real power the Word had.  She had been looking through a book when she felt something, a strange chill in the room.  Then, she looked up and saw the creature.  It was about a third her size, shelled, the gray-white of a swollen blister, with far too many long, razor-tipped legs.  It had no eyes but it seemed to feel her looking at it.  It leapt at her, knife limbs stretching towards her face.  Belle screamed. 

It shattered into a thousand pieces as it landed on her, each piece crawling over her with bladed legs.  Belle swatted at them, still screaming again as they swarmed over her.

Then, her mother was there.  She had her diskos. It burned with light.  Belle could hear her mother shouting the Word over and over again.  As she touched Belle with the diskos, the pain vanished.  The tiny creatures melted away, like ice in flame.

She’d been lucky.  The creatures that made their way into the Pyramid had no bodies, not really.  They were images of fear and thought.  The one that had gone after her hadn’t been clever.  Its attack had been crude, a hunt for a child’s raw terror, nothing more.

Clever ones lured children away, trying to soothe them and spirit them out of sight so the creatures could feed at their leisure.  Deaths were still rare, but there were worse things than being stung and frightened.

But, the Word was their protection.  That was what her mother explained to her after she’d killed Belle’s attacker.  For weak, little creatures, like that one, it was often enough.  If Belle had yelled the Word at the creature, instead of just screaming, it would have been driven off.  Even if it had been a powerful one, the Word would have weakened it.

Most important of all, however, was the simple rule: Only human things with human souls could use the Word.  The monsters that ruled their world could not.

Attacks had grown more frequent as Belle grew older.  They were still only weaker things, she reminded herself.  The Pyramid was protected by the Barrier, and the Barrier still held.  The creature that attacked Belle had looked like a creeper.  But, creepers had bodies of flesh and blood—or something close enough it might as well be called that.  The thing her mother drove off had dissolved, leaving no body behind as a creeper would have.

 _The Word was the first defense_ , Belle repeated silently as she walked the Pyramid’s halls, saying it to people she passed.  Children learned to say it before they picked up their first weapon.  The creatures that belonged to the Night, the ones who preyed on Belle’s kind, could not say it or even think it.

Or that was what they were taught.

Long ago, so Belle had read in the records, it had been enough.  In those days, the Barrier was strong.  The few things that could slip past it were too weakened to pose a true threat.  At worst, they could only lure someone into stupid, foolish acts.  They had no power of their own to cause harm, not like the thing Belle’s mother killed.

Long ago, so the ancient records said, the Pyramid had been so safe, people slept in the dark, dimming the lights because (so it was written) it helped them rest.  Belle thought of lying alone in the darkness (people in those days had often been alone), not knowing what else might be with you or what it might be planning to do. 

Yet, they’d survived.  They’d slept soundly, unharmed, unimaginable as it seemed.

Although, Belle thought ruefully, in those long ago days, women were never trained to fight.  Belle wouldn’t have even had a diskos back then.  As for the men, they might have been trained, but most had never needed it.  No one, except those few, mad souls like Jefferson who dared the Night itself were given even the Lesser Preparation.  Now, they all were.

Their home—the Great Pyramid, they called it, the Fortress, the Citadel, the Last Redoubt—still held.  The few creatures from Outside Belle had fought had all been lesser things, easily dispatched (not  _killed_ _,_ she supposed. There had to be bodies left for things to be  _killed)._

Spirits, the Ancients had called some of them.  Demons, according to others.  They found their way in, growing in strength.  Meanwhile, her people grew fewer with each generation.  The astral beasts that slipped past the Barrier were more than the disembodied voices their ancestors had faced.  These things could drain life and poison souls. 

And that they could enter at all could only mean one thing: the Barrier was failing.  The Pyramid would fall.  It might not be today, it might not be tomorrow—it might not even be within Belle’s lifetime, though she feared it would be much sooner than that—but it would fall.

Unless. . . .

Unless they could find help.  Unless—somehow—they could be rescued.

That was impossible.  Everyone knew they were the last.  There was no one— _no one_ —outside the Citadel they could turn to for help.

The Pyramid stretched high into the darkness and spread even further beneath.  There were observation windows, thick as the walls around them and harder than diamond.  In her free hours, Belle had taken to going to them and looking out on the Night.

That was what they called it, just as they called the lighted walls within the Pyramid  _Day._   A measure of light, one of her teachers had said, not just a measure of time.  Belle, who had read the ancient myths, knew long forgotten tales that said once the world itself had known  _Day._ The whole world had known light, though it went by different names:   _Day, Moon, Stars, Sun._ They spoke of light, hanging like a lamp, high above the Earth.  Some spoke of one light, so bright it was burned the eyes of those who looked at it.  Some spoke of many, cool, friendly lights that could not only be looked at, they could be used to guide wanderers home, pointing the way.

It was all nonsense, so the masters of the Hall of Records said, fairy tales for children.  The world had always been only what it was now, no more, no less.  Only the powers of the Night had grown stronger.  Humanity had gathered to this one place and combined their strength to build the great Fortress that would protect them throughout the ages.  Besides thick walls, they had tapped the power of the Earth Current, the spark of life deep within the world that had given them birth.  That was the power that gave life to the Citadel, that created the Barrier that kept the creatures of the Night away from her kind.

That power—the Earth itself—was dying.

Belle pictured it as a heart, the world’s heart, a red jewel pulsing with life, slowly darkening as the Night ate away at it.  The red spark at its center grew dimmer and dimmer.  Soon it would fade away entirely.

When that day came, her people would die.

Belle looked out at the world beyond the Pyramid.

She did not look up, of course.  There was nothing above except darkness and more darkness.  Some of the lands around, though, were lit by the Barrier.  Belle could see creatures in the plains.  A few creepers passed only a short distance from the gates. 

The creepers had grown more common over the centuries.  Pale and spindly-limbed, with bloated, chitinous bodies.  Other details were subject to change.  Belle had watched them attack and eat parts of each other.  Even without a head—even with half a body gone—she had seen the losers (part of a loser) scamper off.  She had also seen the victors, glutted and full, take leftover bits and pieces of their meals—a limb here, a pincer there—crack a hole in their shells or make a tear in the skin, and fit the stolen parts in.  They would twitch to life after a moment or so, and the new owners would scramble off into the darkness.

The ones today didn’t fight.  They seemed content to watch the gates and those who guarded them before wandering back into the dark.

There were other creatures that lived in the Night.  The Ogres looked something like men.  Some could almost be mistaken for human at a distance.  Some were only enough like to give her nightmares.  They fed on the other Night beasts and on each other.

But, even in the Night, there were sources of light besides the Pyramid.  There was a long fissure deep in the earth.  Red flame and smoke rose from it.  This was where the Great Ogres had their forge, or so the people of the Pyramid called it.  They could see the creatures working diligently in the flames, but what they made or why was a mystery.

Further down, the Shadow Watcher, a dark shape that sometimes crawled up out of the fissure and crouched along the edge.  It would stare at the Citadel for hours before crawling back into the fire.  No one knew if it was one Watcher or many, though Belle had read of the deaths of those who had tried to find out.

So many foolish deaths, Belle thought.  There were many who, over the eons the Pyramid had stood, had gone out into the Night.  Those who returned were honored, their accounts added to the Hall of Records.  Those who didn’t. . . . 

The people of the Pyramid prayed for them and hoped their deaths had been swift, just as they prayed that nothing worse than death had befallen them.

Outside, Belle knew, were mountains, mountains whose cragged walls had slowly eroded and changed over the ages.  Faces could be seen in them, faces that watched the Citadel with hungry eyes.  Mad laughter could sometimes be heard echoing through the Night, its source unknown.

But, that wasn’t what drew Belle’s eyes today.  Today, she traced the path to the Seven Lights.

The lights glowed on distant mountains—true mountains, or ones whose faces had never been seen.

No traveler who reached those lights had ever returned.

She scanned the plains outside the Citadel.  The safest road (if any road in the Night could be called safe) would be along the Road Where the Silent Ones Walked. 

No one knew the truth of the Silent Ones, if they were good or evil or something else entirely.  No other creatures disturbed them in the places they claimed as theirs.  They had never been known to attack the Citadel.

And yet, centuries before, a band of youths—foolish and unprepared—had set off into the night on a rescue mission.  Half of those lost boys had been slain before they were out of sight of the Citadel.  The survivors had struggled to return when . . .  _something_ had overcome them.  It was as if they were bespelled.  They had changed course, turning away from the Pyramid, taking the road of the Silent Ones and going to the great house that stood at its end.

The doors had opened.  The youths had entered.  They were never seen again.

Beyond the road, there was another stretch of plain.  It was known only as The Place Where the Silent Ones Kill.  Its tale was even older than the history of the Lost Boys.  A brave band of explorers had gone out.  One had returned despite his wounds.  He had lived long enough only to tell how the Silent Ones had slaughtered the others.  He had not known why.

It was still the safest road, Belle thought, knowing how little that meant. 

She knew how small her strength was.  She wasn’t a tall, fierce warrior like Ruby.  It was true that, when Belle practiced in the training rooms, she was quick and clever.  But, quick and clever only got you so far.  There were children who could beat her in a fight. 

More than that, there was the law.  No female went out into the Night, not ever.

Belle looked into the darkness, trying to decide the best path.

The Word was a sure guard, so they were taught since childhood. 

Since Jefferson had given her the flower and the wheel, she had heard a voice calling into her mind.  She had replied, sending out the Word.

And she had been answered.

It was madness.  Nothing lived in the Night except enemies of her kind, those who would destroy them.  The Pyramid was their last stronghold.  There were no others.

But, their enemies could not use the Word.

Unless, like the Barrier, the Word itself was failing.  Unless what she heard was a lie luring her to her death or worse.

If that were so, it was already too late.

If not. . . .

 _I am coming,_ Belle sent out into the Night.   _Can you hear me?  I am coming as soon as I can._

She thought the Word and waited.

After a time, the Word came back to her.

 _Come to me,_ the voice called silently.   _I have a deal to make with you.  Come._


	4. Falling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How the Pyramid came to be.

Rumplestiltskin felt it as the pirate began to die, the power surging back into him.  Then, more power—and more—more than he’d ever imagined.

And, then, the world fell apart.

For a moment, everything around him became flat and unreal, as faded as an old photograph.  Then, as if it were being eaten by acid, the photo began to melt, to burn away under invisible flames.

Rumplestiltskin felt the tug of their old world drawing at them, but it was like a faint breeze trying to move stones.  Meanwhile, the ground they stood on dissolved, leaving only one place to go: the Underworld.

He saw the people of Storybrooke sliding past him, men and women and children—oh, gods,  _children_ —falling into that darkness.  He reached out, trying to catch them, any of them; but, they slipped through his fingers, wisps of smoke dissolving at his touch. 

Till he touched Miss Swan.  He could feel the magic burning in her, light and the lingering taint of dark.  The darkness in her was already draining away, but it gave him something to hold onto, a wedge to push his power through, anchoring onto her light before the shadows vanished.

She fought him.  Like Rumplestiltskin, she saw the others slipping past, falling into darkness.  She struggled to get away, to catch them.  But, she could no more hold them than he could. 

All the same, Rumplestiltskin waited.  He felt like a drowning man holding tight to another lost soul in a raging sea, refusing to let go but refusing to seek safety till all hope was gone.

That moment came all too soon, as he’d known it would.  The vortex Hook had opened closed.  The road to the Underworld vanished.

Storybrooke was gone.  There was nothing left to hold them here.  The weak breeze pulling them homeward was now the only force left.  Miss Swan still struggled against him, but he was too strong for her.  Like a swimmer pushing for shore, he followed the current, letting it guide them home.

X

“How could you?” Emma demanded.

On the list of places she had hoped  _never_ to see again, the Dark Castle was pretty near the top—higher up than juvie or the hole in the ground where she’d met Cora—higher up than Rumplestiltskin’s cell in the Dwarves’ mines.  At least, when she’d been trapped there, she’d been with people she  _liked._

Gold had changed when they’d landed here, going back to scales and claws and lizard eyes.  He was sitting cross-legged on the table in his hall, which (thankfully!) didn’t split those skin-tight, leather pants of his.  His fingers were laced together, his elbows resting on his legs and his chin resting against the fingers, looking lost in thought—or maybe shock.  Emma didn’t know and didn’t care.

She’d give him this, he seemed more calm than the last time she’d seen him here—or less like a hyper, sadistic five-year-old.  She’d yelled every insult in the book at him as she stormed back and forth, pacing the room.

“Henry,” she said.  “My parents, everyone, they all fell into that—that  _place._   What did you do?  Henry’s your grandson.  Even if you don’t care about anyone else, how could you do that to him?  How could you—I thought you’d changed, become a  _hero_ ,” Emma made the word more mocking that Gold ever had. “But, you sold us all out.  Again.”

Gold stirred, seeming to finally notice she was there. “You think I did that, Miss Swan?”

“Who else?  You—you did something,” she waved a hand at Gold’s scales and leather.  “That didn’t just happen, did it?”

“I took back the power, yes.  That doesn’t account for this.”

“How do you know?  Of all the selfish,  _stupid—_ ”

Gold went back to ignoring her till she finally began to run out of curses.  “Are you quite done?” he asked.

“No!  Not until you tell me how you’re going to fix this!”

“It would be easier, Miss Swan, if I knew exactly what ‘this’ was.  I took the power back.  Then, the world fell apart.  There’ve been new Dark Ones made before without this happening—three times, in Storybrooke alone.  But, the town still held together.”

“Three?  I only saw it happen once.  Or are you counting Killian?”

“That would make four.  But, no, I mean when the Darkness tried to join with the Apprentice.  Then, Regina, before you invited it to come inside you.”

“I didn’t—”

“Oh, but you did, Miss Swan.  The Darkness can’t enter where it’s not asked.  Your light magic would have prevented it.” He frowned.  “It’s always needed that.  From all its hosts.  An invitation.  Or a link. The Apprentice had some of Merlin’s power in him, the other side of the Dark One.  That gave the curse a way in.  It just wasn’t able to stay.  The Apprentice drove it out.  I wish I’d known him better. . . .” He shook his head, putting aside the impossible.  “As for Regina, she cast the Dark Curse.  Among other things.  That may have been enough.  Or it may only have been threatening her, trying to get you to take it instead.”

Emma stopped pacing.  “You’re saying, if I hadn’t taken it, it wouldn’t have been able to find a host?”

“Oh, I’m sure it would have found _someone_ , sooner or later, who would have accepted it.”  He smiled bitterly.  “It didn’t have to be villain.  If history is anything to go by, all it needed was someone too afraid to say no.”

“Killian didn’t choose it.”

“Killian sought the dagger for centuries, knowing the cost.  He killed his own father for a chance to destroy me.  And he told you to your face becoming the Dark One would be a small price to pay if it meant I were dead.  The Darkness needs an  _invitation_ , not an informed choice.”

Emma rolled her eyes.  “So, that’s what happened to you when you took it back?  You had no choice?”

“Oh, I had a choice, Miss Swan.  You can see the results of it for yourself.  That still doesn’t explain what happened to Storybrooke.  Something unraveled the town and it wasn’t me.”

“Oh, and you have no  _idea_  what could have done that.”

“I have several.  But, unlike you, I don’t have any . . . ah,  _personal_  experience to confirm it.  When I . . . when  _Pan_  died, Regina still had to undo the curse, didn’t she?  What did that look like?”

“The curse?  You think—but, the last time, everyone went back.  Except Henry.  I had to stay with him.”

“But, you saw it dissolve?”

“I—no—not really.  Regina changed our memories—mine and Henry’s.  We drove out and didn’t look back, not that I remember.  I didn’t see it happen—But, everyone just went back.  It’s not like we got sucked into Pan’s curse.  They  _went back._ ”

“Because Pan’s curse wasn’t complete.  There was no place for them to go except home.  That’s why we needed to burn the curse  _before_  it happened, remember?  This time was different.  A doorway had been opened up between Storybrooke and the Underworld.  The town was its own reality.  Destroy it and, yes, we’re drawn back home.  But, if there’s already an open link to another world, the pull to that will be stronger.”

Emma felt her stomach sinking towards her shoes.  “You’re saying—you think  _we_ did that?   _We_  sent everyone to the Underworld?”

The look on Gold’s face reminded her of Whale standing over Henry in the hospital and pronouncing him dead.  “If the curse was destroyed, yes.” He searched her face.  “Was it?”

Emma nodded, horrified.  “We—we thought we could save the town.  Like before.  That’s why Mary Margaret wasn’t there.  She was watching.  If it looked like we’d failed, she was supposed to burn it.”

“And, when you faced Hook. . . .”

“It looked like I’d failed.  Henry, the others, they’re all in the Underworld?”

“Maybe not all of them.” Gold’s voice was calm, but Emma thought she saw desperation in his reptilian eyes.  “Some people, ones who weren’t as linked or who were far enough away . . . the people from Camelot might have escaped.  They were brought by Hook’s spell.  When he died and the town dissolved, they might have been sent back.”

“We were all brought back by Hook’s curse, Henry, my parents, Regina, Robin.  I saw them all fall through.”

“Your family was all at the epicenter.  And they were part of Mary Margaret’s curse.  But, it’s possible some of the others Hook brought back were left behind.”  Gold sounded desperate, Emma thought, as if he were trying to convince himself.  He got up off the table, waved his hand, and summoned something that looked like a crystal ball onto the table.  It reminded Emma a bit of the one from the movie,  _The Wizard of Oz._

 _I don’t want to know,_ Emma thought _._ Instead, she focused on what had happened, there at the end.   _I could have stopped it.  There had to be something I could have done, if Gold hadn’t stopped me.  There_ **had** _to be._ She’d tried to grab Henry, her father,  _anyone_ as they’d slipped past her, but she’d been pulled away.

“Why did you grab me?” Emma demanded. “You pulled me back.  I could have helped them, stopped them from going through—”

Gold waved her concerns aside.  “You were already falling through when I caught hold of  you.  Unless you had a plan you hadn’t implemented yet, I didn’t see that changing.”

“I’m the Savior!  I’d have figured something out!”

“No, Miss Swan, you’re not.  You’re a child of true love, born to parents who were themselves children of true love.  But, you were only the Savior of Regina’s curse because I made sure you were written into it that way.  Your mother cast the second curse, trusting you would be able to defeat Zelena.  Perhaps you were the Savior in that curse, too.  I don’t know.  But, both of those have been undone.  In this world, you’re a gifted, powerful woman—but you are  _not_  its Savior.”

He didn’t look at her, keeping his eyes on the crystal ball.  Faces Emma knew flickered by, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merida, and others.  But, then the glass turned dark and stayed dark.

“Who are you looking for?” Emma asked.

“Ruby,” he said.  “Granny.” The crystal didn’t change.  “Leroy, Doc, Tom Clark. . . .”  He put both hands on the glass.  “Belle,” he whispered.

It stayed dark.

“I thought you sent her away,” Emma said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Rumple said.  “She was part of Storybrooke.  When it vanished, so did she.”

“Are you sure?  It’s the world without magic.  It could be—”

Rumplestiltskin tapped the sphere.  A man appeared in a white coat.  “The doctor I saw in New York,” he told her.  The glass shifted, showing a man on a street corner selling hot dogs.  “I bought lunch from him for Henry while you were chasing down Bae.”  The glass turned black again.  “Belle.”

“What do we do?”

“I don’t know, Miss Swan.”

“Come on, you’ve always got a plan—”

“ _I don’t know._  Do you understand what I’m saying?  Do you know how hard it is for me to say that?”  He looked up from the darkness between them, and she saw the helplessness in his eyes.  His voice was barely a whisper. “I don’t  _know_.”


	5. Belonging to Gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle has one more thing to do before leaving.

There was one place in the Pyramid where Belle could be almost guaranteed to be alone.  It was also the one place where she could almost— _almost_ —be in the dark.

A little light filtered from the ceiling high above.  It was just enough to let her see shadowy outlines of the great, empty space around her.  Even with the light of her diskos, gripped tightly in her hands, she was only able to make a small circle of light around her.  She saw her feet and the stone path beneath her.  Around her, she saw scattered remnants of the past, carved stones that, she knew, had names and dates in a forgotten calendar.  Memorial stones, they were called.  People had once put them up in memory of their dead.  There were also uncarved stones here and there—Belle had no idea what they were for—and a few other objects.  She thought that thing looked like some kind of bench.  Others were large and misshapen.  They looked like they didn’t serve any purpose at all.

Except . . . Belle remembered her odd dream.  If the  _trees_ and  _bushes_ had been stripped of their greenery, they might look like that.

Once, so the records said, plants had grown here.  She’d always imagined them like some kind of giant, hydroponics lab, like the ones where the Pyramid’s food was produced. 

The records, though, said otherwise.  According to them, plants simply  _grew._ _No feeding tubes with nutrients and water.  It just . . . happened._ None of the records Belle read explained this miracle.  It was almost as if the writers expected the reader to take it for granted, plants springing up without being carefully fed in contianers or any other help.

Fairy tales, she thought.  Though, even those stories weren’t so wild as to say the plants needed  _nothing_.  There’d been light.  This place (the  _cellar_  some texts called it, the  _necropolis_ said others) had been “as bright as Day” (whatever that meant when everything inside the Pyramid was Day).  There’d also been water.

It hadn’t flowed in feeding tubes.  Belle hadn’t understood the references to it at all, or she hadn’t till she had her dream.  Now, she wondered if some of the strange breaks she passed in the floor ( _ground,_ she thought. Another word from her dream, she supposed.  A floor like this was called  _ground_ ) could have been  _streams_ or if the strange, hard  _ground_  could have ever been like  _soil._

 _Streams_.  What an insane idea.  How could anyone ever waste water that freely?

She peered at the darkness around her.  How could this place have ever been full of light and life?

Whatever they used to make the plants grow, they couldn’t keep it up in the end.  Whether from tubes or streams or something more unimaginable, there were better uses for the water.  It was the first thing that had been taken away. 

Not  _all_  of it, of course.  Or not all at once.  What flowed here was slowly drained off for the rest of the Pyramid, a little less day by day.  Then, as the Barrier began to weaken, power and light were bled off to feed greater needs.

Oddly, the records were silent on  _how_ this was done, though there were stories. Most said what anyone would have expected, that the engineers had simply done their work, rerouted power lines, and left the last flowers to die in the dark.  Other stories were more peculiar.  Something—the Earth itself or whatever power birthed the Barrier—had made that decision on its own.  Humans lived, plants died. 

There was, as everyone knew, a shrine in the darkness.  A single word was carved over it,  _Reginae_.  It meant “belonging to the queen” in an ancient language.  But, it was called the Tomb of the Sleeping Prince.    _Tomb_ was another ancient word.  It meant a place where dead bodies were interred. 

The idea made Belle shiver.  She’d read of things that were drawn to corpses.  The least of these simply fed on them.  The worst . . . Belle had read accounts of dead bodies made to walk.  She didn’t want to see it happen in real life.

It wouldn’t, of course.  The dead were reduced to ashes, then scattered.  But, it was hard to remember that as she walked alone through the darkness of this place. 

Belle paused and got her bearings.  The diskos seemed brighter than it had before.  She told herself that was just because of the darkness around her.  In the light in the higher levels, the diskos’ glow would be nothing more than a glimmer.  Bright or not, it was enough for her to notice one of the memorial stones.

No one made them anymore, but that was probably how the stories of buried corpses started, as if anyone really would hide bodies beneath the Pyramid’s floor.  All the same, she paused and read the inscription:

_Neal Cassidy_

_Beloved Son_

_Beloved son_.  Belle felt a stab of grief for this long ago, forgotten child, whoever he was.  For some reason, she thought of the legend of the Lost Boys, those brave, foolish heroes breaking out into the Night and being swallowed up by it.  Had he been one of them?

As her concentration slipped, the light of the diskos faltered.  It flickered oddly, painting shadows on the stone.  For a moment, she imagined something else.  In that half-light, she caught a glimpse of different words. 

 _Fire,_ the stone read, instead of Neal. 

Beneath that, she saw another word,  _Auri._  

It was the same language as _Reginai._  It took her a moment, but she managed to translate it.  _Auri.  Belonging to Gold._

For reasons she couldn’t explain, she felt a strange chillBut.  Tightening her grip on the diskos and focusing her thoughts, she hurried on.  The weapon’s light continued bright and steady. 

Her preparations were almost complete, but there was still one thing she needed to do. Despite the darkness and the emptiness, the power that fed the Barrier was said to be stronger here than anywhere else in the Pyramid.  Supposedly, there had never even been an attack by one of the Outside’s creatures down here (Belle could at least testify no attacks had made it into the records.  If anyone died here, there hadn’t been enough left for anyone else to notice).

The tales said, when the Barrier failed at last, this would be where they gathered, the place for humanity’s last stand.

Belle reached the gray, stone tomb.  A soft glow came from its entryway.  The door stood wide open.

Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn’t. Sometimes, a strong man couldn’t make the door budge, sometimes it swung open at a child’s touch (Belle, who had read some things about drafts in wide, poorly ventilated areas and also the strange way moisture in the air—they called it _damp—_ could weld a door shut one day, then let it open the next, had her suspicions how it worked, but today wasn’t the day for testing them).

She went inside.  On a stone bier was what the ancients called a  _coffin_ , whatever that forgotten word meant.  It was made of glass framed with black metal cut in shapes that reminded her of some of the plants from her dream ( _vines_ and  _leaves_ she thought those shapes were called).  That was where the light came from.  There  _might_  be a figure inside, something small and human and not just the imagination of a scholar who’d been thinking far too much about how many dead bodies might be buried down here.  The light made it impossible to be sure.

Belle remembered another story they told children in the Pyramid, about a young woman who was driven out into the Night.  Some tales said it was her wicked stepmother who drove her away.  Some said she was led away by a man called the Hunter who had been possessed by a strange demon called the Wolf. 

Her true love went after her and had many adventures.  He met the hideous King of the Abhumans, who would have made him a prince and adopted him as his son if only he would let his true love die and marry an Abhuman princess in her place, a monster made of made of gold and steel.  He escaped them only to meet a beast that breathed fire and tried to swallow him whole.  Instead, he tricked it into eating a magic egg that took away its flame.

In the end, he found his true love.  But, it was too late.  She was already dead.  Mourning, he had brought her back to the Pyramid.  The Seven who guarded the gate had met him and carried her down to the shrine.  As the hero kissed her one last time, the light from the  _coffin_ had bathed them both, and she had come back to life.  The wicked stepmother was punished, and all lived happily ever after.

It was a reminder, Belle supposed, of what happened to girls who went into the Night.  Terrible as the Night might be, the heroes had adventures and came back victorious (or some of them did).  Girls just wound up dead.

_No female ever._ _That was the law.  No woman or girl ever stepped beyond the safety of the barrier._

She knelt down by the work of glass and iron.  Everywhere, all around the tomb, were carved signs that meant the Word, symbol after symbol.  Belle thought the Word silently to the figure that might or might not be inside the  _coffin._ She told it,  _I need to go.  I don’t know if it’s right or wrong but I see no other way.  Help me, if you can._

She held out the red flower Jefferson had given her.

She had placed it in a small, crystal sphere.  There was a little water with a nutrient solution beneath it.  She’d “borrowed” it from one of hydroponics lab.  Her reading had suggested that might keep the blossom alive a little longer.

Belle didn’t know what she expected, maybe a warm glow like the hero and his true love had been given, maybe a thundering curse for the laws she was about to break.  She held the sphere right against the metal work, against something she thought might be called a  _leaf_ if it had grown in a  _garden._  

The light from the  _coffin_  became brighter, almost blinding, but Belle didn’t look away.  As it grew, she thought she heard a sound, like the pulsing of a heart.

What she saw then, it had to be—it  _must_ be a trick of the light, dazzling her eyes.

The _leaf_  moved, curling over the sphere.  The  _leaf_  had a teardrop shape with a serrated edge, but it closed around the flower like a hand.

There was blood.  It ran from every pointed edge along the leaf.

Or that’s what she thought it was in the moment before the light grew too bright to see anything at all.

As quickly as it had come, the light dimmed.  Belle found herself blinking, trying to clear her vision. 

It took a few moments before Belle could make out the markings on the walls and the iron  _vines_ of the  _coffin._ There was no blood.  Nothing had changed.  Except the flower in her hand.

Looking down at it, Belle saw that one of the petals, lying at the edge, was no longer red.  It was the bright, glittering color of gold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's usual to put words in another language in italics. Of course, the words Belle doesn't know in this world are in our language, but I hope the italics get the idea across that they're foreign to her in this world rather than just being distracting.


	6. Jefferson's Journey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Jefferson contacted Rumplestiltskin.

Madness.

As Jefferson limped up the last few steps to the light on the mountainside, he felt a moment of pure terror.  This was it.  This was when he found out if what he believed—what he remembered—were true or if he were truly mad—if he had risked everything, his life, his  _daughter’s_ life, on nothing more than a madman’s fancy.

There were things Jefferson hadn’t told Belle, things he would  _never_ tell Belle or Grace or anyone.

Unless they escaped.  Unless they were pulled free from this place, and he saw the real world again.

If there really were such a world, if he weren’t insane.

He reached into his pack.  At least, this time, he’d had the hat.  He’d packed the few supplies he’d brought with him in it and around it, wondering the whole time what he would do if anyone, for any reason, thought to check the pack.  There was no reason they should.  It wasn’t as if anyone in the Pyramid had anything to offer an enemy outside—anything besides their own flesh and blood and living soul. 

But, if they had looked, if they had asked questions, if they had decided he was a madman who shouldn’t be allowed out into the dark, then it was all for nothing. 

The Pyramid would fall.  His daughter would die.

He had been ready this time when the world fell apart.  Or as ready as he could be.  He had held onto Grace, held onto her so tight he was afraid of crushing her in his arms.  But, he was even more terrified of what would become of her if he let go.

Then, as suddenly as all the curses before, they were here, in this hellhole.  They had always been here.  The Pyramid was ancient.  It had stood a thousand times longer than any civilization on Earth (or in the Land Without Magic, so he still thought of it.  As if it were real.  As if it had ever existed).

Jefferson, alone of everyone there, knew it wasn’t true.  A few days, a few weeks, it had existed no longer.  If it was this weak already, how much longer could it stand?  How long before it failed completely?

There were things everyone in Storybrooke knew.  There were other things that a watchful, patient pair of eyes could learn while other stayed blind.

Jefferson knew the Dark One’s curse had broken free and found a new host, Emma.  He also knew Emma had somehow found a way to share this with her paramour, Hook, who had dealt with it about as well as Jefferson would have expected.

He’d also watched through his glass as Hook summoned hooded figures with glowing eyes, figures who touched men and women and did  _something_  to them, something that made even Gold—Rumplestiltskin himself—blanch with fear.

That was when the old wizard had sent Belle away.

That was almost enough to make Jefferson seize his daughter and race for the town line then and there.  The only reason he didn’t was that he wasn’t the only one feeling the change in the wind.  He saw the others who tried first.  Gold may have given Belle his protection, but those poor fools transformed as soon as they stepped over the line.

He had gotten out his hat and spun, but all it opened up to was darkness.  Whatever was happening, they were already trapped inside it.

He had been trying to think of something else he could do—anything else—when, the world came undone. 

Or he was struck mad and believed it had.

He hadn’t known what he expected to find at the end of this journey.  Another Pyramid or fortress, perhaps a castle spun of light.  He had only had his instincts as a Realm Jumper and whatever could be trusted in the maps and legends Belle helped him find.  They told him this was the border, this was a place where the separation between worlds grew thin.

Besides, everyone in the Pyramid said don’t go here.  As you value your soul, don’t go.

So, of course, Jefferson did.

What he found, when he finally reached the source of the seven lights was . . . light.  Just light.  A great circle of it, like windows cut into the mountainside or sorcery spilling out of a magic mirror. 

Light from another world, he thought, a world where light was as free and easy to come by as air.  It bled through here where the lines dividing them were weak.  Or so he prayed.

He knelt down in front of it, putting the hat on the ground.  He tried to clear his mind, to martial his thoughts.  It would be ironic to come so far, endure so much, and walk away convinced he was mad all because he couldn’t keep his mind on his job and do the magic he must have done a thousand times before.

Not that it wouldn’t be just as ironic to come this far, endure this much, and truly be insane.

On the bright side, being mad would mean Grace had more time.  It meant the records were right about how slowly the barrier was failing and the darkness was closing in on them.  It meant years—maybe even a lifetime—would pass before the end.

He should have left a message, some explanation for Belle.  He’d come closer to trusting her with the truth than anyone else.  Or maybe he should have told Grace.  Oh, he’d spoken to her before he left.  He’d told her he was doing this because he hoped he would learn something to keep her safe.  He just hadn’t told her what it was he was looking for.

She would misunderstand.  In this world, they all would.  Another irony.  In this world, he was a watcher, a  _Monstruwacan_ they called it.  Unlike the Seven, the guards who watched the gate (always headed by at least one of the people Jefferson knew as the seven dwarves), the Monstruwacans first duty was to watch.  They manned their posts at the top of the Pyramind and scoured the surrounding land, looking for dangers or coming threats.

When he’d first climbed up there, he’d found his telescope from Storybrooke waiting for him.

He’d watched.  The whole land was filled with threats, with monsters.  Some of them killed humans (and dwarves and fairies and anything else from their world).  Some of them, if what everyone in the Pyramid “knew” could be trusted, devoured souls.

But, what intrigued Jefferson—no, what  _terrified_ him—the most was the House of Silence.  He saw the dark cloaked figures that came in and out of it, that walked along their road or the broader lands, ignoring all the dangers of the Night, and he recognized them. 

These were the same figures Hook had summoned, the same creatures that frightened even Gold.

He spun the hat with one hand, gripping his diskos with the other, summoning light.  If he was right, he knew what magic the diskos was summoning.  It might even be the same light making the glow in front of him.

If he weren’t mad, if things were as he thought—he  _hoped_ —then, he was at some kind of border to this land, something like the town line in Storybrooke.  If he were right, he might be at a place touched by magic from beyond.  If he were truly,  _truly_ fortunate, it was magic from a world he knew, magic that might belong to someone who cared if the people on this side of that barrier—or one or two of them—lived or died.

The hat spun.  For a moment, Jefferson only saw darkness.

_ Work, curse you, work, _  he thought.

No whirlpool of swirling light and shadow opened up, only the darkness that was more (or he thought it was more) than the darkness should be.

Except . . . he heard something.  Wind?  He looked around.  Some creature in the shadows?

“. . . ?”

He  _felt_ the question, like the soft brush of a breeze against his cheek.  It might be no more than his imagination.  But, it was hope, and Jefferson grasped for it.

“Hello?  Can you hear me?  Who’s there?”

Something, a murmur.  He couldn’t make it out but he thought he knew the voice.

“Emma?”  He gripped the diskos harder, trying to summon more light.  “Emma, can you hear me?”

There was silence for a long moment, then a different voice.  He couldn’t make out the words but he knew it.  He was  _certain_ he knew it.

“Rumplestiltskin?” Jefferson whispered.

Impossible.  The wizard’s power had been lost, broken.  First Emma, then Hook had overshadowed him.  He might not have died when this new curse happened, but how could he have  _escaped?_

_ He’s the Dark One _ . 

With or without his power, he was the Dark One.  Ancient, powerful, clever, the Deal-Maker who spun webs that entangled queens and shepherds alike.

If there really were a Dark One.  If Jefferson weren’t mad, imagining voices where there were none.

“Can you hear me?  Can you understand what I’m saying?”

The hat still spun.  Not knowing what else to do, he poured out his story, the Pyramid, the monsters, the failing barrier.

“Belle, Rumplestiltskin,” Jefferson said. “Belle’s here.  She’s alive.” He paused, wishing he had something more to offer, a promise to save what Rumplestiltskin loved, to protect her.  But, he couldn’t even protect his own.  All he could do was beg.  “So’s my daughter.  Please, Rumplestiltskin.  I will do anything—I know how dangerous those words are with you, and I’m still saying them—I will do  _anything_ if you save her, save Grace.  Please.”

No answer.

The hat . . . he thought he saw a change in the hat, a glimmer of light.  It wouldn’t open a doorway, but. . . .

Jefferson reached in.  A hand seized his, a hand with scales and fishhook claws.  Images flashed through his mind.  Belle here, at this place.  A doorway opening.  The old imp in all his dragon-hide glory.

_ I can save you,  _ a familiar voice said in his mind.   _I can save your little girl.  But, I need a thread. . . ._

Thread?  “I don’t understand.  What thread?”

_ Something to sew our worlds together.  Bring me Belle.  Open the way, and I can free you. _

He felt something pressed into his hand.  Silk.  The claw released him.  Jefferson pulled out his hand and looked at what he’d been given, a silk bag embroidered in gold.  In it was a golden spinning wheel—just the wheel, nothing more, but an exact replica of the one Jefferson had seen a thousand times in the imp’s castle—and a rose.

Belle.  He had to give these things to Belle.  Somehow, she had to get here, to this place. 

For all his power, Rumplestiltskin had barely been able to give him that message.  He couldn’t open the doorway between their worlds to do more than hand him these small gifts.  Could he do what he promised?  If Jefferson got Belle to this point, could the old imp really do what he’d said?  Or would he take Belle and leave the rest of them to rot?

That was when Jefferson noticed the last item in the bag.  It was small, just a scrap of paper.  When he looked at it, his mind didn’t shape the marks into letters or sounds.  If asked, he could not have described the symbols written there.

But, their meaning seared into his mind.  It was the one thing—the one scrap of magic that let them hold out against the darkness—the magic that lay behind the light of the diskos and the barrier of the Pyramid.

Somehow, Rumplestiltskin had done what no one else in this world could.  It was a magic Jefferson had never even heard of in their own world and still didn’t understand.  But, Rumplestiltskin had written the Word.


	7. Reflections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are not going well at the Dark Castle.

Rumplestiltskin poured over books and conjured image after image in mirrors and crystal balls, in fire and water.  Meanwhile, as the days passed, Miss Swan’s main contribution was pacing back and forth, obviously thinking she’d waited long enough when she asked if he’d learned anything new every five minutes or so. 

He’d dealt with impatient kings, queens, and megalomaniacs without losing his concentration.  He could deal with Emma.  Really, he could.

“Why can’t you just open the doorway, the way you did back in Storybrooke?”

“Because, it’s not just my blood that’s needed,” Rumplestiltskin said, trying to concentrate on his book and not look at her. It had been written by a madman who might (or might not) have seen the Underworld and described his journey using a mishmash of forgotten tongues and bad handwriting.

“What do you mean?  It was all it took last time.”

Rumplestiltskin put the book down.  He didn’t have  _time_ to be giving magic lessons.  But, it looked like it was the only way he was going to get peace enough to read.  “Last time, we were in the land where I died.  The door had also been opened there and . . . consecrated, if you will.  Then, you robbed death without paying its toll, opening the way from the other side for a fury to pass through and claim one of the living.”

“I didn’t know that would happen!”

“I didn’t say you did.”  _Though, you were warned of the price, weren’t you?  You just didn’t know they could send someone to collect._   “Your intentions were good.”  _For whatever intentions are worth._   “But, the door was still opened. Then, four people worked together to pay that debt—four, the number of death—four living people who had each gave a quarter of their lives, one part in four, into the Underworld, tying both sides together.”

Emma blanched. It seemed she hadn’t thought this through before.  “What did that do to them?  Giving part of their lives away?”

“In the regular way of things, it could bind them to that world until . . . well, there are ways to sever the tie.  Since they’re currently in that world, I don’t know that it much matters.” Not quite true, but it wouldn’t present a problem until they got them out.

“I couldn’t let Robin die,” Emma said.

“Yes, you could have,” Rumplestiltskin told her.  He was too tired for this argument, but Emma needed to understand. “If someone had handed you a magic knife and told you murdering someone with it would save Robin, would you have done it?”

He saw the angry clench of her jaw.  She wanted to argue, to shout him down.  Instead, she just grated out one word.  “No.”

“No, you wouldn’t.  That’s the danger of dark magic. With light magic, the costs are always up front.  You can draw on your own power till your strength is used up.  You can draw on other sources till they’re used up.  If you can’t offer what needs to be offered, the spell won’t work.  It’s as simple as that.

“With dark magic, you can put off the reckoning.  You wouldn’t have murdered someone in cold blood to save Robin.  But, if I’d handed you a magic knife and told you, if you promised to murder someone with it tomorrow, you could save Robin today, it would have been harder for you to turn down.  If I told you the life must be offered in a year and a day, refusing would have been even harder.  There are all sorts of things you could tell yourself.  You’d find a way out of it.  You’d find someone evil who deserved it.  Or you’d make a new deal when the time came, promise a different payment for a different day.”

“You’ve never saved a life?”

She had a wonderful sneer, Rumplestiltskin thought. Though whether it was there because she thought he hadn’t saved one or because she though he had, he couldn’t tell.

“I know loopholes, Miss Swan.  You might have been able to use the life of the knight your father had just killed, if you’d been clever about it.” It was always tricky when the price you were offering had, technically speaking, been paid before you offered it. but it could be done.  “You could have closed up the wound because the sight of it put you off your dinner.  You could have decided you wanted to collect the poison in Robin for your collection and magically pulled it out of him.  Saving him would have just been a side effect—although even that still has a price.

“Which is all beside the point.  We don’t have four lives to open the doorway.  We don’t even know where the doorway would be in this world.  That’s assuming it wants to open for me. That place might just as soon not have me back, not yet.”

“What are you talking about?  Those dead guys didn’t mind marking you.  I saw it.”

 _Those dead guys._ Not exactly the most impressive nickname for hordes of evil sorcerers returned from the grave and set on destroying as many worlds as they could sink their teeth into. Miss Swan liked to mock her enemies.  He could hardly blame her, he did the same.  But, he didn’t ignore their strength when he did it.  Of course, Miss Swan would probably point out she didn’t ignore  _her_ strength when she went up against him. 

Dead guys. It was just a matter of scale.

“I wasn’t the Dark One then,” he said. “More importantly, now, I’m a  _living_ Dark One with the power of all the Dark Ones who went before me.  They’d just as soon not have me come to call.” A Dark One who’d come closer to stopping the curse than any Dark One before him, even if a lot of that had been by accident.

“If you hadn’t taken the power back—”

“We’d have been sucked into the Underworld with the rest.”

“Killian—”

“Miss Swan, death doesn’t break the curse. Not on this side, not on the other.  And, for the Dark One, death isn’t death.  If the last Dark One dies without passing on the curse, he can be brought back.  As I well know.”

X

Emma stormed out.  It didn’t help that Gold had a point.  There was a corner of her mind that knew she was being unfair and irrational.  She might not always understand Gold, but it was a sure bet he wanted to rescue Belle and Henry as badly as she wanted to rescue everyone else along with them. 

But, it was driving her insane.  At least, Gold got to make himself useful.  He conjured stuff and went through his books as if he had a clue what he was looking for.  Emma couldn’t even  _read_ most of them.  When she could, she couldn’t make sense of them.  As for spells, she could throw fireballs, rip out hearts, and steal memories with dream catchers.  Unless the Underworld turned out to just be something someone had thought up, she was just going to continue sitting on the sidelines while the lives of everyone she knew hung in the balance.

She found her way back to the great hall.  The spinning wheel was there, in its usual corner.  Emma went over and spun the wheel, not that there was anything for it to spin.  She should ask him to give her lessons.  It might be something to do.  Except, the time he used teaching her would be time he wasn’t using to save Henry and her parents and everyone else.

Emma walked around the room, wondering what all of this stuff was.  Tapestries, paintings, why did he have a sheepskin up on display anyway?  And why was the one guy in that tapestry holding a  _heart?_

She went over to the magic mirror and pulled the cloth of it.  “Hey, Sidney, you in there?  I don’t suppose you made it back here?”

No answer.  Not that she’d expected there to be.

Hard to believe Gold got along without mirrors.  Even in Storybrooke, he hadn’t exactly been underdressed.  Here, how had he even managed to tie those lacey neck-cloth-thingies without strangling himself if he didn’t have a mirror?  Or what about those tight, leather pants?  How could you wear pants like that and not check to see if your shirt was all wadded up where you’d tucked it in in back?

Except he wasn’t Gold here, was he?  Gold would have died before wearing those pants.  Unless Belle asked him to.  Maybe she had, not that Emma wanted to think about that.

Emma remembered hearing what David—her dad—had said about the changes the curse made.  _We are both_. 

 _More like Three Faces of Eve with a side of Norman Bates,_ Emma thought.   _Or Mr. Hyde and Mr. Super-Hyde with claws, scales, and a big dose of hyperactivity._

Or that’s what he’d been last time she’d been in the Enchanted Forest.  This time around, he’d been acting like calm, reasonable, liquid-oxygen-for-blood Mr. Gold.  Which was good.  Emma felt like she knew Mr. Gold.  She wasn’t so sure about Rumplestiltskin. 

Or, maybe, having had that same darkness crawling around in her head, she knew him too well.

Emma felt a chill.  She glanced at the windows.  They were pretty high up in the mountains here, and the weather had a way of changing without warning.  But, it was still sunny outside.

It was the mirror that was frosting over. . . .

Emma reached out and touched it, not quite sure what was happening.  “Sidney, is that you?  Or . . . Elsa?  Is this your idea of a phone call?”

As her fingers brushed against the glass, cold jolted through her.  She saw darkness, a barren, empty land.  Monsters crept across the landscape, killing and being killed.  Red fire bled out of fissures in a dying earth—

_Hello?  Can you hear me?  Who’s there?_

The words echoed in her mind.  The frost from the mirror was spreading out along her fingertips, stinging against her skin.  Emma didn’t dare pull away.  “Rumplestiltskin?  Rumplestiltskin, get down here!  Something—” She stopped, cut off by the pain as the ice spread along her hands.

 _I’m not letting go,_ Emma told the mirror.   _You can’t make me._

Then, Rumplestiltskin’s scaly hands closed over her wrists.  He didn’t pull her hands away, but the ice stopped climbing up her skin.  He looked from her hands to the glass.  His eyes narrowed. 

“What’s happening?”

“Jefferson,” she gasped.  “I heard Jefferson.  I saw—” She gave a gasp as pain burned through her hands.  Her knees shook.

“Hold on,” Rumplestiltskin said, not sparing her a glance.  “Jefferson, we’re here.  What’s going on?  What can you tell us?”

Words came, blending with images.  Emma saw a Pyramid rising against the wasteland, light glowing around it.  She saw the faces of people she knew inside, her parents, Ruby, the dwarves—

 _Belle,_  Jefferson said.   _Rumplestiltskin, Belle’s here.  So’s my daughter.  Please, Rumplestiltskin, I will do anything—_ Emma gasped.  She didn’t understand the imp, not really, and even  _she_ knew you didn’t say that to him.

Maybe Jefferson heard her because he went on wryly,  _I know how dangerous those words are with you, and I’m still saying them—I will do_ anything  _if you save her.  Save Grace.  Please._

Rumplestiltskin looked as desperate as Jefferson sounded, but Emma could see him forcing himself to be calm, to think before he made any promises.  “I can save you,” he said slowly, as if he were mapping out possibilities Emma was sure she couldn’t imagine.  “I can save your little girl.  But, I need a thread.”

“You need a  _what?_ ” Emma said, pretty sure she felt an echoing surprise from Jefferson.

“Something to sew our worlds together,” the wizard said.  Something flashed through his eyes.  Fear?  “Bring me Belle.  Open the way, and I can free you.

“Hold on,” he told Emma.  “I’m going to have to let you go.  It’s going to hurt, but you need to keep this open.”

Emma nodded, bracing herself, and—

She screamed.  She could feel ice burning up through her bones, feeling them crack and splinter with the cold.  “Hold on,” Rumplestiltskin said.  There was a puff of lavender smoke.  She caught a glimpse of something in his hand, a sack of red and gold.  Then, Rumplestiltskin plunged his own hands through the mirror, gritting his fangs.  Did it hurt him, too?  She hoped so.  “I’ve almost got him,” the dark wizard said.  “Just a little longer—” 

Cold, jagged knife-edges of it, cut through her mind, her thoughts.  A part of her knew she must still be screaming.  She could feel the pain in her throat, the pressure in her lungs, but pain blotted out the sound.  It was cutting her to pieces—

X

Rumplestiltskin pulled Emma away from the mirror.  As she collapsed against him, he kept his eyes on the glass.  It was dark as lead, cold and still.  But, at the same time, there was something, the sense of shadows moving in the stillness, flickers of movement in the dark.

He’d done it.  Or some of it.  The doorway hadn’t closed.  Not completely.

He turned his attention to Emma, conjuring warmth and healing.  She tried to pull away, but he held on.  The heat must feel like fire after the cold she’d just been through, as painful as the ice he was trying to rescue her from. 

“Sorry, Miss Swan,” he told her.  “You know how dark magic feels about healing.”

“W-what. . . ?”

“Jefferson.  It seems we were not entirely alone in this.  It takes more than a magic hat to make a realm-jumper.  The Hatter’s instincts led him to what we’ve been looking for.”  He waved a hand towards the mirror.  “A weak place between the worlds.”

Emma looked at the mirror then, just as quickly, looked away.  From the yellow-green color of her face, he thought she was trying not to be sick all over his floor.  So, her magic let her see more than his did.  That . . . wasn’t surprising.  Unfortunately.  “W-what happened?”

Her teeth were chattering.  Rumplestiltskin helped her up and led her to a Victorian-style sofa that hadn’t been there a moment before.  He slipped into his lecturing voice as he settled her down on it. “The way between this world and that one isn’t an easy one to open, not for the living.  Mr. Jefferson needed to draw on power to open in.  Your power.  That’s what it was draining from you.”

“M-my p-power?”

Rumplestiltskin conjured a cloak and tucked it around her.  “Despite what Queen Elsa’s talent might lead you to believe, cold is the absence of energy.  That’s what was being taken from you.  It makes sense.  Your light magic against that world’s dark magic.  I was able to help but I had to funnel that power through you.  When I let go. . . .”

“It h-hurt. I g-got that.”

“Yes, I supposed you did.  But . . . what did you see of that other world?” The Savior’s ignorance of the most basic rules of magic—as he’d had good reason to be reminded these past few days—was appalling.  But, she’d had useful insights in the past.  The gods knew he could use one right now.  Anything to tell him he was wrong. “Did you see the Pyramid?  Or Jefferson’s weapon?”

“P-pyramid?  Yeah, it had l-light.  All around it.  But, I d-didn’t see a-a weapon.”

“Ah.” That wasn’t what he wanted to hear.  Still. . . . “He had a staff.  There was a . . . light at the end of it.  He used it to help power his hat.” Did she see the implications of that?  “When he did, the cold hitting you grew worse.”

“I d-don’t un-understand.”

No, of course she didn’t.  “Miss Swan, that staff fed on  _your_ power.  It was in another world—a world without light magic—but that’s what powered it.  The same power shields the Pyramid.  If I understood Mr. Jefferson correctly, it’s growing weaker.”

Weaker.  The people on the other side were safe for now.  But, for how much longer?

He looked at Emma, already drained and weak.  Had there been signs before this?  She’d been angry, irritable, but her restlessness had seemed like nothing more than what he expected in a woman used to attacking problems head-on forced to do nothing but wait. 

How much power could he feed her?  Hers would resist his.  The power he’d passed through her to open the portal had changed to light—or close enough to light to get the job done—but there were limits. 

Even with his help, even using every trick he knew, how long before that makeshift protection spell he’d glimpsed on the other side failed and Belle—and everyone else—died?

Emma would die when that happened, he thought.  There was no way around it.  She would give every last drop of life and power she had to keep them alive.  When that was gone, she would die along with them.

It was probably unwise to tell her that now.  He kept to the simple facts.  Or speculations. 

And he hoped Miss Swan would find a way to disprove all of them.

“I think. . . .  This is only a guess.  But, the little Jefferson was able to tell us, it’s as if the curse—the one that created Storybrooke—has been reshaped.  Someone managed to grasp the last shreds of it, to reshape what was on the other side and what was left of the town into some kind of shelter, perhaps to give people memories and knowledge to survive there.  At the same time, someone—” He frowned, thinking it over. “—It  _might_ not be the same person.  Or persons.  The fairies use light magic.  They’re not innovative by nature, but necessity—and desperation—are the loving parents of invention.  One of them  _might_ have found a way to use your magic while the world was falling apart.” It was more than he’d seen a fairy do in all his centuries of keeping a wary eye on them, but it  _might_ have happened.

“But, you don’t think so.”

“No, but I could be wrong.  What I  _think_ is that someone with a touch of dark magic and a touch of light, someone desperate and acting on instinct, managed to save them.  Not that it matters right now.” He looked at the mirror.

Did she see who he meant?  There was only one person it could be, one person linked to this curse—and the previous curse—by blood and magic.

“You told him to get Belle.”

He nodded.   _And I may have killed Belle by doing that._   “I did.  Belle is . . . linked to me.  Oaths, promises, they’re another form of deals.  Marriage is an oath, a deal shaped in life and blood.  That place, that piece of the Underworld is shaped by the same rules that form my curse.  It should—it  _has to_ respect that.” And, gods willing, it would respect the protections he’d given her.  

And, if he were very, very lucky, they might be the means of saving them all.

If he were lucky.  Well, why not? he thought bitterly.  There was a first time for everything.

“The oaths Belle and I swore when we married . . . between that and what I gave Jefferson, I think I can draw her out.  If she can get to the boundary.  I’ve managed to prop it open.  Enough to get her through.  I hope.”

“What about everyone else?  Are you just going to leave them?”

Of course.  She would ask that.  Well, he’d given her reason enough.  And it wasn’t as if he knew the answer.  “I . . . hope not.  I think . . . maybe . . . by bringing through Belle, I think I can strengthen the door.”

“You  _think?_ That’s not good enough, Gold!”

“It’s the best I have, Miss Swan.  We  _might_  be able to strengthen the door.  We  _might_ be able to save everyone.  Or we might not.”  He looked at her.  He could see the exhaustion in her face.

It was only to be expected, he thought.  This had been draining, but Emma’s reserves were deeper than she knew.

They had to be.


	8. The Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle starts her journey. A Silent One watches.

The Silent One had thought the hounds would be the first to attack the small human making its way across the barren land.  The creepers, cannibal monsters that they were, would eat anything that came their way, but they never hunted in groups.  Even when they swarmed some fallen creature, they were as likely to bite into each other as their prey.  The few that had begun to crawl towards the fleeing figure scattered as the hounds raised up their cry.

It would not make it to the path before they reached it, the Silent One thought, feeling a touch of regret.  There seemed to be something interesting about this one.  Ah, well.  It would watch this traveler’s last moments.  It had been interesting so far.  While death rarely was, perhaps this one would prove the exception.

X

_Hounds._

Belle ran for the road.  Strange images floated through her mind.  She thought of running through  _trees_ and  _snow_ with creatures called  _wolves_  behind her.  She thought of her strange dream of flowers and plants she had read of.

 _Wolfsbane.  Moonwort._ Imaginary names.  Somewhere, she had heard stories of them, how they could be used to drive off monsters like the ones pursuing her. 

 _Yaoguai_ , Belle thought, as the hounds closed in on her.  Like the hounds, they were fiery beasts with glowing eyes, but they had manes of flame and were called to life with dark magic. 

No, the _yaoguai_ was a fairy tale, it didn’t exist outside of storybooks . The things chasing her might have burning eyes, but they were real, they were  **hounds.**  

Belle saw the small, stony outcrop and headed towards it, scrambling up.  She could make a stand here.  Maybe her diskos alone would be enough to hurt them and drive them off.  Hounds weren’t like creepers, so the records said.  They cared if their packmates were dying, maybe enough to save her life.

She’d expected this, she reminded herself.  She’d  _timed_  this. 

She’d known she would have to run.  Getting out the gate and past the guards had been hard enough.  If she’d wasted any time at all, she couldn’t guarantee they wouldn’t come after her.  Belle’s only hope had been to put as much distance between herself and the Pyramid as quickly as possible.

That meant drawing attention.  It meant she couldn’t use any of the many tricks the adventurers who went out into the Night had learned to not attract the many things that saw them as prey.

Creepers, Ogres, the Silent Ones, Belle had read everything she could on the habits and ways of the monsters outside.  If creepers caught her, they would simply tear her apart and eat her.  If she were lucky, Ogres would do the same.  If she weren’t lucky, well, there was a reason everyone’s armor was made to hide a capsule of poison.

So, she waited for the time when the hounds would be out and running.  Hounds she could handle, if the old books were right.

But,  _wolfsbane, moonwart._ The stories said those long dead plants could drive off “demons that ran in a wolf’s shape.”  Wolf.  An old word.  As far as any of the scholars had been able to make out, it meant something like a hound, the same way the light that lit the Pyramid was something like the long lost “day” that had once lit the sky.

But, the stories also said there was something else that might drive them off.  Belle waited as the hounds came closer, one hand on her diskos, the other reaching into the pouch slung over her shoulder.  She pulled out a handful of the silver dust and water crystals she’d brought, scattering them in a broad arc towards the hounds.  It hung in the air like a cloud, slowly settling on the hounds below.

Belle summoned more power to the diskos, making it glow.  The dust shone back with reflected light. The water crystals seemed to grow larger, changing from glittering sands to smooth droplets.

The crystals summoned the moisture out of the air, condensing it around them.  Harmless—even life-giving—to humans.  But, to the hounds, with their burning eyes and hearts of fire, it was deadly. 

X

The Silent One watched the human take on the hounds.  It was . . . impressive.  For a moment, death had seemed certain.  Then, the small cloud of crystal and silver touched their their faces and hides. For a moment, they only seemed to grimace, skin tightening, lips curling back and showing their teeth.  Then, the flesh seemed to ripple, like the face of a fire fed spring the moment before it began to boil. 

Yes, that was exactly what they were like.  The Silent One knew because their skin began to boil, faces and hides bubbling over like a good soup left too long on the fire. The creatures howled in pain.  Others, still untouched, took up the cry.  They broke ranks and ran. 

The Silent One watched them go.  There were one or two ways to heal such wounds, but it doubted the beasts would find them in time or know how to make use of them if they did.  Time was the only healer who would do them any good.  It wondered for how many that would be enough.  Perhaps it would check back later to see how many in this pack were left alive. 

The human, less curious, only cared that they were gone.  It waited only long enough to make sure they wouldn’t be turning back and to catch its breath.  Then, it checked the area around its small perch before climbing down and continuing on its way.

Cautious and intelligent, the Silent One thought.  It was too easy, when victory seemed clear, to be careless, to not look for other dangers that might still be waiting. 

Dangers like itself.

The Silent One began to make its way to intercept the human as it came to the road.

X

Belle staggered up to The Road Where the Silent Ones Walk.  She was not expecting to see a Silent One waiting when she got there.

It wore a black, tattered cloak, ragged edges floating in a nonexistent breeze.  Red eyes (she assumed they were eyes) glowed out of the shadows of its dark hood. 

Belle scrambled up onto the path, holding her diskos between her and the creature.   _The road is safe,_ Belle reminded herself.  Records going back almost to the Age of Day said the Silent Ones never attacked when travelers were on the road.  Not that they always needed to attack.  She remembered the story of the Lost Boys, lured (so it was said) by a piping only they could hear.  They had gone into the House of Silence and never come out again. They had walked along the road to get there.

The Silent One drew back a little.  It seemed to be regarding her curiously.  Did it know she was a woman?  That mattered to the Ogres and Abhumans.  Did it matter to a Silent One?  It was taller than her.  If it were human, she would have guessed it was a man under that cape, though she couldn’t tell for certain.  Did such things matter to Silent Ones? 

They stood a few moments, watching each other.  Slowly, Belle began to back away, making her way down the road.  The Silent One drifted after her (did it have feet? She’d always thought they did, watching them from the Pyramid, but it moved like a ghost).

Belle held her diskos tight, ready for battle, but she turned and looked forward.   _The road is safe,_  she reminded herself.  Safe from physical attack.  If the Silent One tried to cast a spell on her, to lure her into their house. . . .  She began reciting the Word in her mind, trying to concentrate on going forward.

X

The Silent One backed away.  This human was still ready to fight.  A memory drifted up, another human, a knife in its hand, ready to kill to protect its own.  It did not remember details but it remembered its amusement at how that had turned out.  The human had had no idea what it was getting into.

Still, this human interested it.  It drifted along behind it, watching.  The human continued to hold its weapon ready but it did something else as well.  The Silent One felt a ripple of disturbance.  The human’s mind glowed.  It was the same kind of light that guarded the Pyramid and powered the human’s weapon.  But, there was more to it.  This felt alive in a way those hadn’t.

What was this creature?  The Silent One had thought it a fool or criminal of some sort, fleeing its own kind’s retribution, however foolishly.  But, that wasn’t how it behaved.  Its actions were careful and planned.  Everything it did, every action suggested it was considering each move, weighing the risks and the benefits.

The meeting with the hounds had been deliberate, the Silent One realized.  For whatever reason, this human had had to flee the Pyramid.  It could not rely on stealth or the usual small defenses and distractions the Pyramid could make for one of their travelers.  It knew it would have to run, a choice that was nearly certain suicide.

But, it had chosen a time and a place where it would face the hounds—and it had had a weapon that could defeat them, something no human before it had done.

Now, it summoned light into its mind, driving back any power a Silent One might have used to manipulate it.  Not that the Silent One was trying to manipulate the human.  Like they dying hounds, the creature had made it curious.  It thought it might follow the human to at least the end of the road and see what else happened.  It might even follow it further, rare as it was for them to leave their given territory.  The Night was dull and this creature was interesting and. . . .

The Silent One paused, recognizing the feeling inside it.

_Familiar._

This creature was  _familiar._

It drifted along, silent as the grave in the creature’s wake.  Up ahead, it saw the gathering of its kind it had noticed before.  But, they were clustered in a thick mass, blocking the road.  The one who stood at their head—the Silent One knew this one only a little.  It was young, as their kind counted age.  New, that might be a better word.  It radiated fury and hate. 

If they did not move out of the way, the human might fight its way through—or it could try.  Once it attacked, the neutrality of the road would be broken.  The whole mass of them could swoop in and do as they pleased.  If it went off the road. . . .

They were near the place, the place where no mercy need be shown.  It was a law as old and strong as any the Silent Ones had.

Any being that set foot there—any being that wasn’t a Silent One—died.  There were no exceptions.


	9. Passing the Gauntlet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle has to get past the Silent Ones.

Belle looked at the figures gathering before her, their red eyes glowing.  If they were eyes.  No one, in all the history of the Pyramid, had ever seen a Silent One’s face and lived to tell.  Belle suddenly imagined pulling one of those hoods back and seeing the head of a blind slug, tentacle-like stalks hanging above gaping mouths to draw in their prey.

She swallowed, her hand tightening on her diskos.  This wasn’t the time to let her imagination run wild.  The dangers in front of her were bad enough.  If she didn’t concentrate on the present, it didn’t matter what the Silent Ones’ faces were like, she would be dead either way.

“What is this?” Belle said, trying to sound firm and brave.  They might not speak, but the Silent Ones understood human speech well enough.  Or that’s what the few who’d met them and lived to tell about it said.  “This road has always been a refuge.  Anyone who reaches it has safe passage in return for getting here alive.  That’s the  _deal.”_   She emphasized the word.  Somewhere—she couldn’t remember where—she’d read that about the Silent Ones: they valued bargains, deals.  When they made agreements, they kept them. 

It must be just a child’s tale.  How could mute demons make deals?  But, when it was time to grasp at straws, you grasped at every one you could and held on tight.  One hand on the diskos, she reached into her pouch, searching for what was left of the dust she’d thrown at the hounds.  If it had worked on them, it might slow down the Silent Ones.  Instead, her fingers brushed against the golden spinning wheel.

The metal should have been ice cold out here.  Instead, it was warm against her touch.

_ Anger. _

It hit her like a burning wall, making her gasp. She  _felt_ it—and who it was coming from: the Silent One who stood at the front of the rest. He radiated a terrible, murderous fury.

She held the wheel tighter.  Somehow, she could sense the others as well.  Some shared the first Silent One’s anger, though none of the rest burned so fiercely.  Some were ambivalent.  Others were bored.  A few even seemed uncomfortable, like strangers trying to ignore something that was none of their business.

“A deal,” Belle repeated slowly.  “Isn’t that what they say about you?  You always keep your deals.”

Discomfort grew stronger.  A few turned aside and began to drift away.

But, the first one’s fury only grew.  It stalked towards her.  Its hunger—its  _need_ to kill her, to rip the life from her—mounting with each inch.

_ No. _

The Silent One who had trailed along behind her was suddenly standing between Belle and her enemy.

_ No. _

She could  _feel_  the force of that denial even if she didn’t sense the word itself—even if she couldn’t understand the rest of what was passing between them.  It was an argument.  She sensed that much.  There was anger on both sides.  The first one’s fury never waned, but neither did the follower’s resolution.  This was  _wrong,_ the follower seemed to be saying.  What the angry one wanted was  _wrong._

Some of the others began to move farther away.  Belle thought they might even be . . . embarrassed?   _Guilty?_ Could Silent Ones even  _feel_ guilt?  A path began to clear before Belle.  The follower still stood between Belle and the angry one.  But, she thought—she couldn’t be sure—it seemed to move its head ever so slightly towards Belle and—maybe—give the faintest hint of a nod.

Slowly, Belle began to walk into the crowd of Silent Ones, her diskos still held high and bright, her other hand tightening around the gold wheel.  She wondered if anyone from the Pyramid was watching through one of the telescopes and what they thought of the lunatic trotting right into an army of Silent Ones.

They stood aside and let her past.  The emotions she’d felt from them began to die away.  Soon, there was nothing left but a sense of calm watchfulness.  It was a drained, empty feeling.  Belle wondered if this was what it would feel like to be surrounded by ghosts.  Only the first Silent One still boiled with anger.  And the one who stopped him, she still felt something from him, too.  Resolution.  That was what it was.

She was almost to the end of the crowd when the first one’s fury boiled over.  She looked back and saw it pushing past the follower, coming at her.  Its anger thundered against her, like the roar of a wild beast as it brought down its prey.  Instinctively, Belle raised her diskos, striking out at her attacker.

She could sense the Silent One’s pain as the light struck it.  At the same time, the dead emptiness of the others’ vanished.  It was as if her diskos had struck each of them.  Outrage, hot and churning with life, rose up all around her.

And the Silent Ones lunged for her.


	10. Creatures of Light and Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma and Gold discuss death.

Rumplestiltskin—it was harder to think of him as Gold when she saw him standing there in his scales and leather—had a pile of books and scrolls scattered over a table.  He was pouring through one of them, a frown on his face, as Emma came in.  Kicking some of the spun gold out of her way, Emma shoved the bread she’d brought under his nose.

“Here,” she said. “Eat.”

“Not now, Miss Swan,” Rumplestiltskin said, moving away so he could continue reading.

“Even you need food, Gold.”

“If I did, I’d have starved to death in that hole the Blue Fairy made for me.”

Emma winced.  She’d seen the prison Rumplestiltskin had been kept in.  But, she didn’t let Rumplestiltskin derail her. “Stop trying to change the subject.  You could have left whenever you wanted.  And I don’t care if you need food or not.  I need something to do.  That means you can either eat what I bring or I can shove it down your ungrateful throat.”

“If you need something to do, watch the mirrors.  I’ve had difficulty focusing them.  Tell me if you see anyone you recognize or anything that seems important.”

“How am I supposed to know what’s important?  I don’t know what anything over there is.  Like that,” she said, waving her hand at one of the mirrors.  “That looks like a city.” It did, too, a shadowy outline of what could have been dark buildings dotted with scattered lights.

“It is,” Rumplestiltskin said.  He frowned, putting the book down and looking over a scroll, then checking the book again.  He grimaced.

“It is?  The Dark Ones have a  _city?_ ”

“Hardly.” Rumplestiltskin put the book down and picked up another.  “The city is at the very edge of our . . . territory in the Underworld.  Or the beginning of another.  We could go there but. . . .”  He looked up at the mirror, closing the book.  “We called it the City of the Dead.  It’s empty.  No one’s there, except. . . .”  Memories, like ghosts, seemed to pass through his eyes.  “Things happen there.  You see things out of the corner of your eye, lights flickering on or off, shadows that seem to move.  You hear sounds.  Or you think you do.  They might be voices.  Or wind.”

“You said there wasn’t any wind.”

“There’s not.  But, there was no one in the city, either.  When you turn around, when you look for the light, for what should be casting the shadow, there’s never anything there, nothing that shouldn’t be.  Sometimes. . . .  There were times I thought I heard people.  I ran into a diner, once, because. . . .  It doesn’t matter.  There was no one there.  But, there were plates laid out on the tables, as if they’d just been there.  I remember a cup at the edge of the counter, as if it had just been put it down, the way you might if you turned to look who was running in the door. . . .”

The hair on the back of her neck stood up. “You never saw anyone?”

Gold—for that moment, he was Gold, human and not the mad demon she’d met a lifetime before—said nothing, just stared at the mirror. 

“. . . . Once,” he whispered.  “Only once.  There are places there that are . . . familiar.  The same.  Except they’re not.  I . . . I saw an apartment once that—that was like Bae’s.  The one in New York.  Another time . . . I saw my shop.  It was in a row of stores I didn’t recognize.  But, it was the pawn shop, right down to the sign with my name on it.  I went up to it.  There was a street lamp behind me, but the shop was dark and the door wouldn’t open.  I had to get close to see . . . too see if it was the same inside as out.  There were reflections in the glass.  I was there—I could see my face staring back at me.  But, nothing else in the reflection was the same.  It wasn’t the street I was standing in.  It was a village.  And my—and two women I’d known—I’d swear it was them—were walking down it. 

“But, when I turned and looked, they were gone.”

“Did they—were they dead? Dead in our world?”

“Oh, yes, centuries dead.” He smiled bitterly.  “Most people I know are.” He looked at the shadows and lights in the glass.  “They looked just the way they used to, smiling and laughing.  They looked like they were discussing good news. . . .”

“But, they were gone when you looked.”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever. . . .”  _Go back there, find out what was going on, know if they were ghosts or just something messing with you?_ “. . . . see them again?”

“No.  Never.  But . . . I ran to where they would have been, where I could have intercepted them if they’d been there.  I felt something brush against me, like cloth made from wool.”

“They—they were having a good afterlife, then.” No, that was stupid.  She needed learn to think before letting sounds come out her mouth. 

“They deserved one,” Gold said.  “So did Bae.  I hope he found one.”

Neal.  Who’d given his life trying to save his father and given it again to save them. The same way Gold had. “ _You_ deserved a good afterlife,” Emma blurted out.  Gold gave her a scathing look. “You  _did_ ,” Emma insisted.  “You died saving the town.  None of us could have stopped Pan.  You’d earned it.”

“I died saving my family.  Or trying to.  The rest of you were . . . incidental.”

“You still deserved better.  Why didn’t you get it?”

He laughed at that.  “You’re asking  _me_ to explain, Miss Swan?”

“You were there, weren’t you?”

“And you were in the system as a child.  Did that give you the power to understand why life in it wasn’t always fair?” He looked at his mirrors.  “That world . . . it may be Limbo, it may be Purgatory.  It may just be a little pocket of space where the souls of Dark Ones go when we die.  I don’t know.  I know that . . . the things we did follow us into that life.”

“What do you mean?”

“There are . . . shadows.  Nightmares.  When they catch you, you . . . experience things.  If you slaughtered a kingdom, you will live through the pain and suffering of each soul who died.  And when you’ve suffered for all of them, it will start over again.  And again.”

Emma stared at him. “You—?”    But, she didn’t finish it.  “No,” she said.  “ _No._   I know you, Gold.  You’ve done some crappy stuff.  But, you wouldn’t do that.”

“Wouldn’t I?”

She rolled her eyes.  “You’d come out and say it if you had, not just throw it back as a question.”

“You think I don’t enjoy fencing with words?”

“I think you know I can tell if you’re lying.  You haven’t wiped out any kingdoms.”

“. . . . no,” he admitted reluctantly.  Why reluctantly?  Because what happened would have made more sense if he had? “But . . . other Dark Ones did.  And. . . .” he searched for words, ending in a grimace.  “The last Dark One—the latest in the long line, living or dead—is . . . linked to the others.  They can . . . pass their nightmares to you.  If they can catch you.” His eyes were dark and closed as he studied the world in the mirrors.

Emma stared at him.  “Then, Killian. . . ?”

“Hook isn’t the last.  I am.  He’s safe enough.  But, I don’t know if the people from Storybrooke are.”

“What do you mean?  You said the Dark Ones can’t trade places with them.  They’re already in the Underworld.”

“No, they can’t.  That doesn’t mean they can’t do other things.  I’ve been thinking about it, and there’s a variation they could do on Charon’s mark.  If they’d been able to trade places with the living, it stands to reason the person they trapped would suffer their nightmares, doesn’t it?”

“It does?”

“I think so.  It doesn’t make that much sense to come back to this world if you can’t get away from them.  There are rules in that world, and the barrier—and your magic—is protecting the people inside. For now.  When it fails . . . well, there are rules.  Those might help.  But, they’re Dark Ones. They’ll know the loopholes.  They’ll know how to get people to do what they want.”

“You mean trick them into making deals?”

“Not exactly.  They can’t speak to the living, not unless it’s someone touched by the curse—they  _might_  be able to talk to you, so be careful.  If anyone steps into the House of Silence—see it there?  That’s what Belle calls it—they can do whatever they want to them.  Or see that?” He pointed to a dark plain near a small road.  “That’s the Killing Ground.  Only they’ll do worse than killing to anyone who goes there.  Believe me, I—I know.” 

Emma heard what he didn’t say:  _I remember._

She thought of the many names she’d seen on the dagger.  How many people were in Storybrooke?  “How many will they use?  How many . . . I mean, do they keep the extras or—or send them away, or—How does it work?  What will they do to them?”

“I don’t know.  I told you, I couldn’t die.  I think—I hope—our people can.  If they’re lucky, their souls will move on.  If they’re not lucky . . . I don’t know.  And, I don’t know if they can spread their nightmares over a group or if one victim at a time is all they can handle. 

“Although, it might be better than I think.   It won’t be all of them.  Even when I was there, there were several who just let me be.  It was only the angry, bitter ones I had to deal with, the ones who thought it wasn’t  _fair._ ” He twisted the word with scorn.  “The others . . . some don’t care.  Some . . . seem to accept it.  There was even one. . . .”  Gold hesitated.  “I . . . don’t know what happens to the other dead—the normal, uncursed dead.  I don’t know what happens to  _my_  kind of dead, the Dark Ones, beyond our little Purgatory.  But, there was one of us.  He—he was ready to face what was beyond it.  Whether heaven or hell was waiting for him on the other side, he didn’t care.  He just—he was ready to make peace with the ones he’d harmed.”

“What happened to him?”

“I don’t know.  I didn’t see him among the dead Hook summoned.  I haven’t seen him in the mirrors.  Maybe he found a way out of that place.  Maybe the townsfolk will, too.” The brief hope died in his eyes.  “If not. . . . You’ve seen the monsters of that world, Miss Swan.  They’re vermin to the Dark Ones, creatures that have crept in or were part of that place when it became ours, pests that weren’t worth the trouble of exterminating.  They can kill people just as easily.  And worse than kill.”

She thought of Henry, her parents, everyone she knew.  Gold, she was sure, was thinking of Belle.

“What about you?” Emma asked.  “You said that one guy might have found a way out.  Did you try to leave?”

His face grew more closed.  “I couldn’t, Miss Swan.  I told you, I was the last.  That bound me.  There wasn’t any other way out.”

“And now?”

“Now, I’m trying very hard to stay alive.  I don’t intend to—” He stopped, eyes widening in fear.  “Belle,” he said. “There’s Belle.”


	11. Nightmares and Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle faces the Silent Ones. Rumple watches.

In world after world Rumplestiltskin had seen, mortals studied the stars, searching for the secrets of eternity.  They named the planets for the forces they saw trailing in their wake: Iron Mars, lord of war; Venus, daughter of fire and passion; swift Mercury; and lordly Jupiter, implacable king.  In their movements, the wise and the mad read the secrets of fate and time.

The skies of the Underworld were an empty slate, dark and meaningless, giving neither light nor hope.  Rumplestiltskin watched as Belle ran over the barren ground.  The earth was red clay.  Even if there had been light enough for seeds to grow, the heavy soil would have killed them, smothering new life before it could begin.  There was nothing life-giving or nurturing in this world, just different masks of death.

He saw the hounds pursuing her, saw Belle cornered on the rocky perch she’d taken shelter on, her diskos gripped in her hand, already summoning the light that was a weapon in its own right in that world.  Did Miss Swan feel it drawing on her?  He spared a glance for her.  She looked pale and tense but not weakened.  So far, she was bearing up. 

When she fell, the Pyramid would fall with her. 

Belle should be there, he thought.  She should be safe behind what little shelter this nightmare offered, not running head first into the jaws of death.  He only needed to find a way back into that realm—besides the way everyone knew.  Death would only trap him there and lay him powerless at his old companions’ feet.

But, he’d already seen Miss Swan come close to failing.  Without his help, their brief contact with Jefferson would have been too much for her.  The barrier of light magic around the Pyramid could have vanished, then and there.

Maybe.  Perhaps.  He told himself that Miss Swan was stronger than she knew.  And she was only one part of the power protecting the people of Storybrooke.  There was still time, still a chance.

But, all of those chances would dwindle away to nothing if someone didn’t get to the small doorway Jefferson had helped them make and let them pry it open entirely.

Belle.  At the time, talking to Jefferson, all Rumplestiltskin could think of was Belle.   _Get Belle to me.  I will save you all.  But, get me Belle._

Madness.  Impulse.  Worst of all, even after days to think over the possibilities, he didn’t have a better answer.  The wolf girl was a guard in that world, bound by honor to defend it.  She would not leave her place to run out into the wasteland.  The dwarves stood watch over the gates. None of them would abandon their posts or listen to Jefferson’s ravings.  None of them, if they heard Rumplestiltskin whispering to them through the night, would have broken all the Pyramid’s laws to come to him.

And, even if they had, none of them were the wife of the Dark One, bound to him and his power by love and oaths. He might curse himself for letting Belle chain herself to a monster, but her light lived in his heart, side by side with the darkness inside him.  He thought—he hoped—he could pull her through. He could save her.

And, if he could save her, then he could save the others.

Or so he hoped.

She just needed to stay alive long enough for him to do it.

Belle reached into her pouch and scattered the dust.  It looked like a cheap trick from a children’s game, scattering cheap sparkles and calling it magic.

But, this was silver and a small pinch of light magic, a mix of dust that could summon clean water out of the air.

Belle, trapped by the rules—or what she thought were the rules—of this world, thought of it as science.  She watched the hounds with the tense face of a woman who believed in the logic of what she had done and only hoped she had gotten it right.  She didn’t know that she had pitched light against darkness.  The only question was which was stronger.

The hounds’ skin boiled, twisting in a way true flesh couldn’t, like simmering mud.  The ones who could howled in pain before scattering away from her.

It was the one virtue of the hounds.  They were a pack.  Facing too many injuries to their fellows, they would retreat to lick their wounds.  Not like the creepers, mindless killers who knew nothing but selfish, cannibalizing hunger.

Belle moved on, making her way to the small safety the road offered. 

The Silent Ones.  That was the name Belle gave his erstwhile brethren.  For all he knew, it might be the name they gave themselves.  They had been weakened at the end, their power draining into him.  The magic that had made the Pyramid, that cobbled together knowledge of how to survive in this world and a history that told the people how to apply it, may have caught the Dark Ones in its net, as well.  Even if the spell had only reshaped fragments of their memories, perhaps they had forgotten their terrible, jealous hatred of the living.

Either way, the road was safe.  This world was part and parcel of the curse, a physical reflection of it.  There were rules, just as there had been in their old world, laws and bargains that allowed mortals to walk a ways with the Dark One—or the Dark Ones—and survive.  This road was the manifestation of that.

But, Rumplestiltskin had been the Dark One long enough to know how frail that safety could be, even for those he’d meant to keep safe—for those he would have died rather than endanger.  The ones there had no such concerns.

There was a Dark One walking behind her.  Belle didn’t trust it (good for her) but she kept going.  The Dark One shadowing behind her seemed more curious than anything else, like a well-fed dog that had caught a scent it didn’t know.  Predator, prey, plant, it didn’t care.  It only wanted to know the answer.

It.  He.

_Zoso._

Rumplestiltskin tensed.  Zoso was the only Dark One he’d spoken to before being cursed.  Zoso had never been one of the ones who pursued him in the dead lands, cursing him for ruining all their chances at ever being alive again and forcing nightmares down his throat.  Everything he knew of Zoso was from that brief meeting when he was a mortal man.  And, then, he wasn’t.

He remembered that moment of recognition as Zoso became the man he had been, grinning a mad smile, one Rumplestiltskin would come to know only too well in years to come.  It had meant nothing to him then.

_You told me to kill you._

The smile began to fade.  _My life was such a burden,_ Zoso said, human grief and weariness washing over him _._ He gave Rumplestiltskin a final curse—or a warning. _You’ll see. . . . I know how to recognize a desperate soul._

A desperate soul.  Was that what he saw in Belle?  Was that why he trailed behind her?

_My life was such a burden._

Rumplestiltskin had never felt that.  He wanted to live.  He knew the gambles he had taken and the prices he had paid to stay alive, time and again.

But, more than that, he knew there were people he wanted to live.  Belle.  Bae.  Henry.  There were others that he might not die for but he had inconvenienced himself—sometimes considerably—to keep them breathing.

And there were people he . . . he simply hadn’t let die.  Children he’d led home from battle.  Wounded and sick he’d healed.

His magic demanded its price, but he’d learned to work his way around it, tricky as some of those ways might be.

None of them were any good to Belle right now.

Zoso snuffled after her, curious dog that he was.  Belle walked on.  Dark Ones gathered in the road, blocking her.

Belle spoke to them.  Something—memories, instinct, fragments of knowledge from this new curse—let her use the only arguments Dark Ones could be trusted to listen to.

 _A deal,_ she told them.   _The road is safe passage.  That’s the_ **deal**.

Her hand brushed against the golden wheel he’d been able to give to Jefferson.  He’d done what he could to put power into it, to make it a link between the worlds.

Just as he had when he was there, trapped with him, Rumplestiltskin could  _feel_ the other Dark Ones.  Boredom, curiosity, hate, they flowed through him. It was the same link that allowed them to make him endure their purgatories in their place.  Now, he could only hope it was helping Belle, warning her of the danger all around her.

He’d managed to communicate with her using the wheel as a focus but didn’t dare try it now.  It took concentration from both of them to do that, concentration Belle couldn’t spare if she wanted to walk out of there alive.  Worse, it might let the others sense him, the one thing they hated more than any living soul. 

For a moment, he thought Belle would safely win through, but one of them could not let that stand.  He burned with rage.

Rumplestiltskin recognized him, the anger, the burning need for  _revenge_  in his heart; and this Dark One had recognized Belle.  His was a freshly dead soul, one that still writhed and chaffed under all his earthly resentments, anger at his loss of life, jealousy of those who still had it—but, his fury was strongest for Rumplestiltskin, for the Dark One who’d survived and won back his power when this one had lost it all.

Hook.  This Dark One was Hook, and there was no one he wanted revenge on more than Rumplestiltskin.  He also knew what would hurt Rumplestiltskin more than anything else, going after the ones he loved.  Where he led, the others followed.

X

Belle held up her diskos, summoning light.  Some of the Silent Ones flinched and slowed, but not the one that burned with hate.  He bore down on her, and—

Images exploded in her mind, memories that weren’t her own.

_She was only a cabin boy but already proud of what she’d learned. She had memorized more than half the tables for figuring the position of the ship by sun and stars and could do calculations in her head faster than men twice her age did with pen and paper.  She’d been proud of her skill with a sword, even though she knew it would be years before she could hold her own with grown men, like the captain._

_But, that had been before their ship was attacked by the Jolly Roger.  The pirate ship flew the red flag and gave no quarter to enemies. She made use of her small size, darting between the fighting men till she reached the keg of gunpowder.  The pirate ship was right alongside theirs, close enough that even she could throw it across.  All she had to do was light the fuse, and—_

_“Well, aren’t you a clever lad?”_

_A hand grabbed her by the collar, yanking her back.  She saw a metal hook shine in the sunlight as it bore down on her throat._

_“I’ve no use for clever lads.”_

_Pain burned along her throat. She couldn’t breathe. The world blurred and began to fade, but she was still alive as the hook-handed man shoved over the side of the ship into the waters below.  The raw wound in her neck hurt like a hot iron as it met salt water.  In those last moments as she struggled for air, she saw the red stained waves around her and the bodies of dead men being torn apart by sharks, drawn in by the scent of blood and meat.  She saw one of the fins turn, speeding towards her—_

Belle gasped, managing to break free from the Silent One.  What  _was_  that?  It was like a dream turned to nightmare, a world drenched in light and water but where men fought—fought and  _killed_  each other, where people— _people!—_ tossed their own kind to monsters who devoured them.

A dream, she thought, an illusion.  There were stories of ancient conflicts, but those were vague rumors implied in the very oldest texts from the days before the Pyramid.  Creepers, hounds, Silent Ones, those were the things humans feared, not each other.

She tried to back away from the Silent Ones, keeping her diskos between her and them, but—

_The village burned.  She heard the screams of the people trapped inside the houses, begging for help, for mercy.  Her own screams joined them._

_She saw a woman, cloaked and hooded, a dagger clasped in her hand.  “Dark One!” she shouted. “What are you doing?  Stop this!  Let them go!”_

_The woman laughed.  “I warned you, didn’t I?  All magic comes with a price.  This is just the one you have to pay—”_

Something seized her, pulling her back and—

_There was a battlefield.  Thousands lay dead around her.  But, somehow, she was still alive—_

A different touch, and then—

_She looked down on the dead bodies of her children—_

A shadow pushed the other aside.  Burning eyes met hers—

_The cage was woven of razor sharp thorns.  Her hands were a raw, bleeding ruin from her efforts to break them.  The witch, satisfied her oven was hot, was coming to get her out—_

Belle was shoved aside.  She collapsed on the ground, gasping for breath.  A Silent One stood between her and the others.  If they had made sounds, she imagined that one would be growling, just like a guard dog from the ancient tales.

 _It can’t hold them for long_ , Belle thought.  There were dozens of them and only one—what was he?  Defender?  Protector?  Or just a Silent One who didn’t want to share?

Using her diskos as a staff, she pulled herself up, trying to ignore how the world lurched unsteadily around her.  She reached into her pouch, trying to think what she could use.  The gold wheel?  That had let her feel what the creatures felt, but it hadn’t done much else.  The dust, what was left of it, might do some good.  Or it might not.  Her fingers closed around the crystal sphere where she had placed the rose.  Belle pulled it out.

 _The Word,_ a voice said silently.   _The Word.  Say it._

Belle whispered it.

Light erupted from the sphere.

X

Inside the Dark Castle, Emma Swan screamed.


	12. Night Crossing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle runs till she can't run any further.

_Light._

Searing, burning light.  

The Silent Ones scattered before it, fear and pain driving them away.  Even the Youngest, the one whose anger had burned against the human, fled.  For the moment.

Only one hesitated.  The light was agony, but the one who had watched the human face the hounds and make her way to the road recognized it.  This was the same light that shielded the Pyramid. In the moment before it turned and ran, it looked to the fortress and saw the light around it flicker and dim.

It was just for a moment, scarcely the space of a breath.  Then, the light returned.  It was the same moment that the light bursting from the flower in the human’s hand died away.

There was something acrid in the air, like the smell of fire and ash.  The Silent One recognized it: Human fear.  For that brief moment, the Pyramid had trembled in terror.  The scent of it drifted through the Night.  The others of its kind, driven by their own panic, might not have noticed; but others would, like hungry beasts scenting blood.

They would be coming.  And the Silent Ones would follow.  If— _when_  the barrier fell, they would fall on the small band of mortals and feast.

Those were not the mortals, however, that interested this Silent One.  It turned its attention to the one who had attacked them and who had nearly brought down the only protection its own kind had.  The figure was running as fast as it could down the Silent Ones’ road. 

Behind it, other Silent Ones were already beginning to recover and follow.

X

Belle ran. 

The light had scattered the Silent Ones, but they were already starting to regroup. 

Why?  Everything— _everything_ —she had read, every record, every legend—they  _all_ said the Silent Ones left travelers on this road alone.  It was an unquestioned fact.

But, the one who had come at her, she had felt its hate—hatred for  _her_ , personally.  As if it knew her.

And the images, the nightmares that had flooded her as the Silent Ones came close, what were they?  They felt like—like  _memories._

No.  Not possible.  The age of light was over and, even when light had ruled the sky, the things she’d seen—the things she’d experienced—people could never have done that.

Could they?

Belle shoved those thoughts aside.  She knew now what would happen if the Silent Ones caught her.  The records had never been clear  _how_ the Silent Ones killed. 

 _The Hall of Scholars will be so happy,_ Belle thought.   _If I live to tell them._

Her breath was coming in ragged gasps, scraping across her raw throat.   _Keep running,_ she told herself.

Her lungs begged for air.  Her legs burned.  But, she didn’t let herself slow down, not even to look behind her and see how close her pursuers were, not till she tripped in the darkness and tumbled blindly into a small pit.

The ground reminded her of her dream.  It was softer than ground should be but slicker than the earth in her dream, smearing along her armor where she’d fallen.  Belle pulled herself up.  Her legs protested, and she wasn’t sure whether or not they’d win the argument and buckle under her.  She was still gasping for air, each breath burning red and raw.  The pain meant nothing to her lungs as they continued pumping like a bellows.  She brought up the diskos but she held it low, keeping it below the wall of earth behind her, and only summoned a dim mist of light.  If the Silent Ones didn’t know where she was, there was no reason to shine a beacon and tell them.

She realized there was a strong smell of sulphur in the air.  She must have been too panicked to notice it before.  Now, it hit her in all its rotting glory.  Not that it slowed her breathing any.  She just wished that it would.

A brine pit, that’s what the explorers called these; not that there was much brine.  They were points where chemicals—sometimes even including water—broke near the surface.  By the diskos' dim light, she saw things crawling around in the muck, yellow crabs, the largest no bigger than a couple inches across.  They crawled around in the mire. Several, drawn by the commotion she’d made falling in, were already crawling onto her feet.  They bit at her armor and dug in with their claws, or tried to.  Her armor was more than strong enough to hold off a small horde of them.  All the same, she kicked them off.  She imagined them swarming her over her, bringing her down with sheer weight and numbers.

Creepers would do it.  So would the thing that had attacked her as a child in the Pyramid.

But, the crabs scuttled off, heading further into the muck.  Whatever they were, they knew when to cut their losses.

Belle got out her canteen and made sure it was operating properly.  It worked with the same crystals she’d thrown at the hounds, pulling water out of the air.  She drank thirstily.  Then, she got out a survival tablet.  They were funny, tiny things.  A single pill was supposed to work as a full meal, with all the nutrients she needed to keep going for a half a day.  They were difficult, costly things to make—especially now the Pyramid was failing.  Belle conscience nipped at her for how many she had stolen, three full packs, enough to survive one hundred and eighty days, more if she rationed them.  Explorers had been out here longer than that. She looked at the crabs, wondering if they were poisonous and if she would be reduced to finding out before this was over.

Probably not.  She’d faced death twice today.  At this rate, she’d be dead long before she ran out of food.  

She took a second pill, one that numbed her hunger.  There were fewer of these.  They were meant to help her stomach adjust to being empty all the time. 

Breathing easier, she packed up her supplies and peered over the edge of the pit.  She didn’t see any red eyes or any other sign of the Silent Ones.  It was time to get moving again. 

She pulled out the flower.  To Belle’s surprise, it spun in its crystal sphere.  Then, it stopped.  The single, gold petal seemed almost like an arrow, as if it were pointing the way.

Belle reached into the pouch and pulled out the golden wheel.  She thought the Word and tried to call out into the Night.

_Hello?  Can you hear me?_

_Belle?_  The Other thought back to her, tagging on the Word almost as an afterthought.   _Are you all right?  The Da—_ Belle had the oddest feeling, as if a thought had suddenly been cut off.   _The Silent Ones,_ the voice said.   _They didn’t hurt you, did they?_

 _How do you know about the Silent Ones?_ Belle asked.

 _I know,_ the voice answered.   _I’ve made . . . windows.  Of a sort.  They let me see where you are.  Sometimes.  And I know a great deal about the Silent Ones._

_Belle, you mustn’t use the flower against them, not if you have any other choice.  It uses light.  But, it draws on the Pyramid.  They can’t spare it._

_What!?_

Jefferson, Ruby, Leroy—dozens of faces flashed through Belle’s mind.   _Are they all right?  You_ **told** _me to do it!_

 _Me?_ The voice was startled.   _Belle, I never spoke to you._

 _But—_ Belle rethought what had happened.  She’d pulled out the flower.  She’d called for help, but the voice that answered . . . it was different than the one speaking to her now.

 _The Word,_ she said.   _I didn’t say the Word to it.  And it didn’t say it to me._ The simple test that every child was taught, the one way to tell humans from their predators.   _What happened?  What did I do to the Pyramid?_  

 _They lived,_ the voice assured her.   _The barrier flickered for a moment.  Nothing more.  The defenses held.  They’re safe.  But, don’t call on that power again.  Not unless must._

 _The flower,_ Belle asked.   _What is it?  Before I left, I took it to the Tomb of the Sleeping Prince._ Quickly, she tried to send the images of what had happened in the tomb.   _It . . . changed it.  For the better, I thought.  It—it’s pointing the way I should go._ Was it lying to her?  She didn’t need it, she thought.  Belle had planned out her route before she knew the flower would do that. 

But . . . it had given her a moment of hope to see it do that, to feel something was helping her on her way.

 _If it was the sleeping prince,_ the voice said slowly,  _then, yes, it means to help you.  It meant to help you when the Da—when the Silent Ones attacked.  But, be careful.  There are some things that—that_ **mean** _well but don’t consider the cost._

 _You said you know about the Silent Ones,_ Belle said.   _Why did they attack?  All the records—everything we know about them—says the road is safe.  And—and what was it they did to me?  I—I felt images—nightmares—They were terrible.  They_ **couldn’t** _be real.  But—but, they felt as though they were._

 _Images?_ The voice asked.   _They did_ **that** _to you?_ Belle thought she felt anger, as fierce as the anger of the Silent One who had tried to kill her on the road. 

 _They’re cursed,_ the voice told her.   _Some of them accept it. They live through nightmares of the evil they did._

 _You don’t mean—you can’t mean those—those images were real?_ No, Belle wouldn’t let herself believe that.  It was too terrible even to imagine.

The voice hesitated.   _Nightmares are not always literal truth,_ it told her.   _But . . . the ones they harmed would recognize them.  Under certain circumstances, they can make others suffer in their place.  The Place Where the Silent Ones Kill, if they had caught you there, they would have tortured you with nightmares till you died or were driven mad._

_But, they attacked me on the road.  Why?  And one of them—it seemed as if it knew me.  How is that possible?_

_He—_

_He?_ Belle interrupted.

 _The word applies to some of them,_ the voice said dryly.   _He would have claimed he hadn’t attacked you, that threatening moves aren’t the same as an attack. As for why he hated you, I think you’re like someone he knew before._ The voice paused.   _There are those the Silent Ones hate, those who’ve . . . escaped their fate.  I . . . believe you reminded him of a victim who got away._

Belle thought of the road she’d already left behind her and the long way she still had to go.   _Will he come after me?  Will the others?_

 _. . . . I don’t know,_ the voice admitted.   _I’ll try to help you, if I can.  I . . . may have some power against them.  Even here.  Or I may not.  Let the rose guide you back to me.  Then, I can keep you safe.  I can keep you all safe._

Wearily, Belle got up.  She would have to get moving again.  With luck, she might find a better place to spend the night.  Carefully, she put the wheel pack into her pouch.

She glanced back at the crabs and their muck hole before dimming the diskos.  She would be safer making her way in the dark for a while.

That was how she saw the shadow crawling over the dark ground.  It paused a few feet from her.  She saw it brush against a crab.  The creature froze then, slowly, crumpled to dust.

The shadow looked up at her with the red, glowing eyes of a Silent One.


	13. Silence and Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle learns what the Silent Ones fear.

Belle held up the diskos, summoning more light and trying not to look at the dust that had been the small crab moments before.  With her other hand, she held up the gold wheel the same way she had held up the flower.  Her hands itched to grab the small globe, but she thought of the Barrier around the Pyramid, thought of its light flickering and dying.   _I don’t dare.  Not again._

The Silent One didn’t react as she brought up the weapon, but it seemed to flinch when she held up the wheel.  She gripped it tighter.  The same thing was happening that had happened on the road.  Somehow, she felt what the Silent One seemed to be feeling.

Caution.  Curiosity _.  Fear._

Fear of the gold object in her hand.

 _Why?_ Belle tried to send the thought to it the way she had sent it to the voice that had set her on this quest, testing the link.  She didn’t send the Word.  The Silent One might not be attacking (yet), but she knew better than to do that.

The Silent One seemed to cock its head curiously, trying—and failing—to decipher what she had said.

“Why?” Belle whispered, afraid to make too much noise—although what there was left to fear when a Silent One stood only a few feet away was hard to imagine.

No, it wasn’t.  More Silent Ones.  The ones who were still out there, who hadn’t followed this one into the pit. That would be worse.

She tried to reach out with whatever sixth sense it was the wheel gave her.  Yes, she could feel them, more Silent Ones out there.  But, not close, she thought.  She hoped.  There was also none of the clear, focused anger she had felt before the first attack.

“Why are you afraid?” she asked.   _What do Silent Ones fear?_

The Silent One lifted a shroud-covered hand ( _did they have hands?_ ) and gestured towards the gold wheel.

Belle focused, trying to send the thought to the Voice, hoping it could explain.   _The Silent Ones are afraid of the wheel?_

There was silence, and she wondered if she’d been heard.  Then, the reply came. 

_No._

_It was afraid of her._

Belle didn’t understand.  The Silent Ones feared  _nothing_.  In all the ages the Monstruwacans had kept watch on the land outside the Pyramid, it was the other creatures that fled before the Silent Ones or were driven back when they interfered.  Humans, now and again, using the light of the diskos and the power of the Word, had held them off long enough to escape, but that was all.  The world beyond the Barrier belonged to them.

Belle tried to form a question, to make sense of what she’d been told, when the Silent One stiffened, looking behind Belle.  Something—the  _attention_ —of the Silent Ones had sharpened, like the hounds when they caught her scent.  She didn’t think they knew where she was, but something was drawing them.  They were coming.

Belle moved, trying to take up a more defensive position.  The other Silent Ones would come from behind her.  Or she thought they would.  Of course, this one had come from in front of her.  As if he’d wanted her to see it coming.  As if . . . he were trying not to frighten her?

_None of this makes sense._

Belle tried to think of a plan.  She didn’t dare use the flower.  She couldn’t fight this many of them off with the diskos.  If she tried to climb out of the pit and make a break for it, they’d see her at once—and she didn’t think she had the strength to outrun them again. If she were very, very lucky and stayed very, very still, they  _might_  pass her by, not looking too closely into this particular pit. 

If she weren’t lucky. . . .  Belle tightened her grip on the wheel.  She tried to clear her mind, not sure if she wanted to ask the question,  _How afraid of you are they?_   Because, she couldn’t imagine anything that could drive off an army of Silent Ones.

And . . . if it could. . . .  Whoever— _whatever—_ it was she’d spoken to had been able to say the Word.  Nothing that was an enemy of humans was supposed to be able to do that.

There was also nothing Silent Ones were supposed to fear.

Belle hesitated, wondering if she were summoning something even worse than the Silent Ones down on her people.

The Barrier was failing.  What choice did she have?

_There is always a choice.  We are the ones who decide our fate. No matter how dark that fate may be._

She gripped the wheel, sending a different message.   _Can you help--?_

She had not finished the thought before the Silent One beside her lunged, reaching out with its shadow-hands for the wheel.  As it touched her, the ground beneath her feet caved in.  In an avalanche of mud and dirt, Belle and the Silent One tumbled into the dark.

X

The Silent One had approached the human cautiously, trying not to startle it.  The light the human had summoned burned, but the Silent One had recovered more quickly than the others. 

 _This was wrong,_ it thought,

They all had nightmares.  It was the curse of their kind.  The worst of its own were the ones where children died (children, such a strange concept.  The Silent Ones were all the same, all ageless.  Some older because they knew they had walked these lands before the other, younger ones had joined them.  But, they were never  _children._ Only in the world of dreams could there be such things.  Only in the world of dreams could the Silent One feel their suffering and know it had no power to stop it.

 _My life had become such a burden._ The words and the choice that came from them echoed in its memories.

It dreamt of a knife, a knife it knew had had a name carved into the blade.  In the way of nightmares, it could never read that writing yet it knew it was a name, a name that belonged to the red embers in a dying heart.  When those embers died, when that heart had turned to black, the writing would fade with it.  The being that had held that name would be gone—the blade, which somehow enslaved the creature that name belonged to, would be powerless to hold its servant in check.  A monster would rise up in its place.  First, it would destroy the ones who had dared leash it.  Then, it would turn and destroy all the rest.

It would save the children for last, letting them see all the others perish before them.

_My life had become such a burden. . . ._

In dreams, the Silent One died before that could happen (was there such a thing as death?  The humans could suffer it, and small vermin could be turned to ash.  But, had any Silent One ever experienced it outside of dreams?).  Though it remembered no name, it believed it had one— _still_ had one.  If there was any truth in nightmares, then it had escaped that life before the worst could happen.

So, unlike many of the others, it never tried to escape the dreams.  They were unbearable— _nearly_ unbearable—but they were better than oblivion of a dead heart, and (whatever else it remembered) it was certain it had earned them, every one of them.

The young one, the one that had attacked the human, was different.  It burned with anger and resentment.  Whatever road had opened the door for it to the House of Silence, the ashes of its heart screamed with the unfairness of it.  It had been deceived, cheated.  So it declared again and again.  It did not deserve to be here. 

All that fury had boiled over at the sight of the human.  The Silent One almost thought the young one had recognized this mortal, impossible as that was.  It seemed to blame the human for what had befallen it—or perhaps it only resented it for being free of the pain that was the Silent Ones’ birthright. 

Whatever it was, it had threatened the human on the road.  The Silent One could almost say it had tricked the human into striking out, except there had been no trickery.  Had the human not fought back, the young one would have shown no mercy. 

The others hadn’t seen it that way.  Blaming the human for breaking the truce, they had shared in the young one’s anger, feeding on it, using the human for the relief it could give them from their own minds. 

Given time, they would have fed that darkness into the human till it died in madness and pain.  The Silent One might have spared a moment’s regret if that had happened on the Killing Plain, but that was the appointed fate of any foolish enough to go there.  But, this had been on the road.  This—this was  _wrong._

So, it had fought against the pain and pursued the human, arriving first, watching to see what it would do.

As it waited for the human’s response, one of the small crabs scuttled out of the mud and investigated the newcomer in its territory. The crabs were small parasites, feeding on small scraps of death and darkness.  The Silent One had neither time nor interest for such things.  It stripped away the creature’s pseudo-life with barely a thought, letting it fall back into the dust that had created it. 

That was a mistake.  The human seemed disturbed by the simple act.  Its grip tightened on something in its hand. 

The Silent One had expected the flower.  But, it wasn’t.  It was gold.  It was living darkness, an echo of the dagger that had slain it (had it died?  Had it ever been alive?).  Shadows of nightmare swam before its eyes.

The human eyed it uncertainly.

“Why?”

It tried again.  “Why are you afraid?”

The Silent One reached out towards the thing in her hand.  It did not have human words or its own memories—but it knew.  A shadow loomed over the object, darker than the House of Silence.

That was when it sensed the others.  They were coming.

Had it alerted them?  Could they sense the thing the human held?  Or was it just the scent of a living soul drawing them?

The human braced itself, ready for a fight.  One it couldn’t win, the Silent One thought.  The human was—what was the word?—exhausted.  Humans were . . .  _tangible_  in a way the Silent Ones were not.  That physical dimension had limits on its energy and how much it could expend.  It was near those limits now.

There was the talisman the human held, the one that seemed so terrible and yet so familiar.  It was like the power of the Silent Ones—like the power of the world itself.  Yet, it was wielded by this frail, mortal creature.

Though, mortals had their own, strange strengths, like the light of the Barrier, a light they endured with ease that drove even the Silent Ones before it.

It though of the light of human hearts (the heart it dreamt of, red embers turning to ash, surely that had been a physical thing, like the human before it?).

An intersection of powers, it thought, needing only a trigger, a trigger the human didn’t know how to provide.

The Silent One did.

It lunged at the human, reaching for the talisman.

 _Open,_ it told it.

The ground beneath them obeyed, giving way.


	14. In the House of Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Belle is unconscious, small shadows come out to feed.

They were in a tunnel. No, a hallway.  The walls a gold colored stone hung with tapestries of red and gold.  Darkness crawled over them, slow and sluglike.  The human lay unconscious on the brightly polished floor.  The Silent One stood protectively over the human but had no power to drive the shadows back.  Blindly, they oozed towards both of them, tentacle-like stalks reaching out to touch.

_Asylum._

_Tower._

_Cell._

_The words flitted through Belle’s mind.  They meant darkness, hunger, cold, trapped with no way out._

_She was trapped in the dark with no way out.  It was a memory.  It was a dream.  It was real, with the shadows closing in._

The Silent One reached out and touched the shadows.  They were different than the small crab it had scattered to dust before.  Those were the barest scraps of nightmare.  These were something else.  The Silent Ones themselves were made from darkness like them. It . . . remembered.

No, that was a foolish thought.  Its kind did not forget.  Its memories, when it bothered to recall them at all, were pure and clear.  They were full of pain and torment, but they were clear.

This feeling . . . it was as if it were imagining the world itself had once had another shape, another  _meaning._

And, yet.  Light.  Darkness.  Voices hissing in its mind.  Dark deeds and darker.  Screams.  Orders that could not be disobeyed.

The shadows were made of such memories.  They hungered for more.  That was what they were hunting for in the human, the Silent One realized as they touched it.  A specific memory.  It feel the quarry they were searching for:  a name, a face, somewhere in her mind. 

Why? it wondered.  It was used to understanding its world and it thought it knew all its creatures.  Why were the shadows hunting knowledge in this human’s mind? 

And what would they do when they found it?

_The Pyramid burned._

_No.  It wasn’t the Pyramid.  It was something else._ Castle, _a corner of her mind whispered the name.  This place was called a_ castle.  _The Abhumans, the Ogres, all the monsters of Night had come to tear it down.  Their lives were measured in hours, perhaps only minutes._

_But, still, some part of her clung to hope.  There was still a chance.  They still might live.  If only_ **he** _would come. . . ._

_From the corners of the room, shadows crept closer, sharing her hope._

There was no darkness in this world that the Silent Ones didn’t know or understand.  Or there shouldn’t be.  These shadows were immune to its power.  It tried to suck the life from them, but they ignored it.  It tried to drive them back only to have them ooze past.  It tried everything it knew to protect the small human.  The shadows merely went on with their feeding.

 _They’re like us_ , it thought.  The way the Silent Ones fed on life, the way the nightmare memories took them.

But, the shadows were hunting memories in the human’s mind, as if they had none of their own, as if they _wanted_ the cursed things.

The Silent One touched the human, tasting the slightest drop of life.  But, instead of forcing its own night terrors in, it tried to see the darkness in the mortal’s own mind, the secrets the shadows were hunting.

It felt them pressing hungrily, searching in memories of death and fear.  But, while it could feel scraps and hints of the thing they sought there, they never caught the memory of the thing itself.  Frustrated, they pressed closer, drinking in the warm glow of life from her body, licking at the gentle glow of her soul.

_Darkness.  Cold metal bound around her wrists.  Food that crawled with worms._

_“They were cruel to her,” a voice hissed. “They tortured her with scourges and flaying.”_

_Don’t believe it,_ _Belle told herself.  Or not herself.  She was alone.  There was no one in else in the cell, but there was someone else she spoke to, that her heart cried out to, trying to shout the warning._

_Don’t believe it._

_The voice went on, sweet and pleasant.  “She threw herself from the tower,” the voice gloated.  “She died.”_

_Died._

_Belle remembered falling.  She remembered the world falling apart around her, souls slipping into darkness._

_She died._

The Silent One watched as the human’s breathing slowed, the glow of life beginning to fade as the darkness moved in to finish its feast.

_No, Belle thought._ **No.**

_She felt her hand tighten around something hard and round.  The wheel.  It warmed in her hand._

_“She lied,” she told the darkness.  “You’re lying, too.  I’m alive.”  She saw the pale, bright lines scratched into the tower walls.  Each one was a day, another day she hadn’t died, another day she hadn’t given in.  She saw the defenders in the castle, burned, battered, but still unbroken._

_“He could be on his way right now.”_

_Another voice, familiar, unfamiliar, seemed to fill the room._

_With a high pitched giggle, it said, “ _Do you know something?  She’s right. Her deal is struck.”__

_And then darkness rose up out of the gold, darkness stronger and angrier and _hungrier_ than the small shadows crawling around them._

_“You wanted to see my face?”_ _the Great Shadow asked. “ _Well, dearies, here it is.”__

The Silent One leaped back, breaking the link.  It watched as the oozing, shadowy slugs were torn to shreds.  It heard their silent screams, and it watched as their tattered remains tried to fly away.

They didn’t make it.  The Silent One wasn’t sure what it saw.  The wheel, it was certain, was as dark as anything in the room, but it burnt away the shadows like summer sun.

Unless it hadn’t.  Unless it hungrily gathered them in, like stray wisps lost from spinning, and devoured them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we have the first big diversion. Originally, I was trying to fit in some back story from the book, The Night Land, and fit it into Once's history. In the book, the Pyramid is still at the height of its strength, though it knows it will fall some day when the power that protects it is used up. There is another pyramid, the Lesser Redoubt, that is already failing, and the book is about the hero's attempt to save the last survivor. 
> 
> I tried to fit in all this back story while reworking it to sound a bit like Belle's story in Skin Deep. Needless to say, it was a bit much to throw at readers all at once. If I want people to know the plot of The Night Land, I should just tell them to read The Night Land. Or, better yet, try the more readable adaptation by James Stoddard.


	15. THe Other Side of the Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rumplestiltskin talks to Belle and explains some things to Emma.

Emma didn’t know what had happened.  Somehow, Gold had gotten himself into the mirror. 

Except he was still kneeling in front of it, the scaly him who dressed like a fairy tale rock star.  The him in the mirror (bending over the unconscious, dirt-covered Belle because, of course, he was) was the perfectly dressed Gold she knew from Storybrooke in one of those suits whose buttons were worth more than Emma’s car.

A wave of dizziness hit Emma. Her magic.  Something was using her magic again.  She knelt down, hoping the room would stop spinning.

They’d watched the shadows ooze off the walls, turning into really disgusting, giant slugs that had reached out to Belle with their eyestalks (ugh!).  Or that’s what Emma thought when she saw them.  She didn’t know what they were, but she’d been pretty sure this wasn’t a good thing.  Even the Not-Gold Dark One that seemed to tag around after Belle like a lost puppy (So it wasn’t just Gold.  Did all Dark Ones act like that around Belle? Emma and Killian hadn’t, but maybe it took a while to kick in) had tried to stop them, not that he’d had any luck.

And, then,  _something_  happened.  The shadows got sucked into the spinning-wheel-thing. There’d been a sort of wavery-shadowy thing, a little like a projector trying to come into focus and lighting up really slowly while it did, and, bam, Gold was there.

And Emma was here, alone with a frozen shell of a wizard.  Only—

Emma shook her head, trying to clear it.  It didn’t help.  Something was wrong.  All of this was wrong.  She could feel her magic being drained into the other side of the mirror, leaving her empty.

“Gold,” she whispered.  “Gold— _Rumplestiltskin_ _._ Get your scaly hide back here before. . . .”  The words trailed off.  Numbness was spreading through her.

“Gold,” she didn’t know if she said the words or thought them.  “Get back here. . . .” 

X

Belle opened her eyes then blinked as dust got into them.  No, not dust.  Earth.  Dirt.  The ground the Silent One had collapsed beneath them.  She tried to brush it away.

“Careful, that was quite a fall you had.  How do you feel?”

There was a man sitting beside her, watching her anxiously.  He had gentle, brown eyes and brown hair worn rather long for a man.  His face was very thin and his clothes were worn and ragged. 

“Who are you?  Are—are you from the Pyramid?”

He gave her a sad, shy smile.  “No, I’m from the castle.”  He looked around.  Belle, following his gaze, saw they were in a room like nothing she’d ever seen before. 

_Except she had._

Belle tried to shake off the feeling of familiarity.  There was nothing like this in the Pyramid.  There were hangings on the walls, pictures somehow woven out of brilliantly colored thread.  Beautiful as they were, who had time to make such things or the tools to do it?

X

The tapestries were creepy, Emma thought.  The ones she’d seen in Gold’s place on this side of the mirror weren’t so bad: unicorns, queens, a couple of expectant mothers chatting with each other.  One of the tapestries on the other side had a unicorn, too.  Except somebody had just chopped its head off and was holding the blood dripping trophy up by the horn, smiling.  Another showed a guy who seemed to be leaning over a fountain and looking down at another guy.  Emma would have figured it was his reflection, except you generally didn’t grab your reflection by the neck and hold it underwater.  A third one reminded her of the Pied Piper, only the Pied Piper was a tall, cloaked figure.  His hand—a clawed, scaly hand, like Gold’s—was raised, somehow holding back the children’s parents.  Some of them held their hands to their throats, as if they were choking.  Others writhed on the ground.  The children, instead of dancing along happily, shuffled like captives.  They looked helpless and trapped.  They were all armed.  The weapons were a hodge-podge, polished swords, broken spears, a quiver full of mismatched arrows.  The cloaked figure was marching them towards a battlefield.

X

Belle had always been pale, Rumplestiltskin thought.  But, in this world, she had the milk-white skin of someone who had never seen the sun.  Snow White would be jealous—except Snow, somewhere back in the Pyramid, must be even paler.  The whole town would be descending on Tom Clark’s en masse to buy sunscreen when he finally got them out.

He’d half-expected her to scream when she saw him.  Instead, she looked puzzled as she rubbed the dirt out of her eyes.  Her pupils looked all right, and he didn’t see any obvious signs of concussion.  “Careful,” he warned her.  “That was quite a fall.”  Would this projection of him be able to heal her if she were injured?  Or would he have to watch helplessly even if she were dying? “How do you feel?” he asked.

“Who are you?  Are—are you from the Pyramid?”

Was he from the Pyramid?  Rumplestiltskin looked down at his scaled hands.  He was wearing silk and leather with boots that might have taken over half-an-hour to lace up if he did it without magic. Was there anyone  _like_ him in the Pyramid? A dozen, ironic replies went through his mind.   _I’m from the House of Silence._ True enough, in its way, and the last answer he could possibly give her. “I’m from the castle.” The Dark Castle, if he were to give it its proper name, but when had he ever been proper?

“What’s that?” Belle asked.  “There isn’t any place else.  Not for humans.” Uneasiness flared into her eyes. “Is there?”

“I likely know less than you do about places for humans in your world,” he said. “There weren’t any when I liv—when I was there.  The castle is beyond this,” he said, waving a hand to take in their general surroundings. “It’s in a place where light still lives.  So much of it.  The sky is drenched with it.  It stalks our days and haunts our dreams.  Light enough to make you sick of seeing it. 

“Light in the sky. . . .” Belle breathed then shook her head. “That’s just a story.”

“You believe it enough to be here.”

“I—” Belle stopped.  What did she think would save her people?  He’d stood by her while she’d seen their world in dreams.  So much light, they were drowning in it, and not a drop she could take back on waking.  The Barrier—and its light—were dying.  What else could save them?

Belatedly, she seemed to remember something else she was forgetting.  She said the name the people of the Pyramid called the Word. 

Diligently, Rumplestiltskin started to say it back.  To his surprise, it burned in his throat.   _Light,_ he thought.   _Of course._ In this world, that name summoned light magic.  It hadn’t bothered him when he said it in a dream or in his own world.  Here, it was different.

But, it was a name he had as much right to say as anyone else in this world and more than many.  Focusing on that and stealing himself against the pain, he said it again.

Belle frowned.  She’d noticed his hesitation. 

“You need to get moving,” Rumplestiltskin said.  “This place isn’t safe.  The shadows have been beaten back for a while, but there will be more.”  There were always more.

Belle looked around at the rich carpets on the polished, wooden floors.  Then, she looked at the tapestries on the walls.  There had been nothing like this in the Pyramid, Rumplestiltskin remembered.  That was a world of bare essentials.

“What is this?” Belle asked. She pointed at the tapestries.  “What are those?”

“Memories,” Rumplestiltskin said. He knew these stories.  Narcissus, cursed by an angry Dark One, had become (quite literally) insane with jealousy.  He had seized his own reflection and held it beneath the waters of certain fountain.  But, Narcissus had been the one who drowned.  The unicorn had no story.  It died for no reason at all, because that Dark One felt like killing it.

And there was Zoso, Rumplestiltskin’s predecessor, enslaved by the Duke and leading the children to war.

It hadn’t been that way, not exactly.  Zoso had made examples here and there, making sure anyone who rebelled was properly punished.  The children had been sent off to war in ones and twos, armed with whatever weapons their parents could press into their hands before they were taken or that the Duke’s army didn’t mind losing in the slaughter.  He looked at the hooded figure standing nearby.  He’d never experienced Zoso’s dreams—he’d never forced them down Rumplestiltskin’s throat the way so many of the others had—but he knew this was the image that haunted him.

“These are the nightmares of the Silent Ones,” he told her.  “I think you’ve felt them already, haven’t you?  You need to keep moving if you don’t want them to catch you again.”

“Why?” Belle asked. “What is this place?”

“What this whole world is.  The Silent Ones’ dream.  You are standing in the House of Silence.”

“The House?  That’s not possible.  I passed it on the road.  I left it behind when I ran.  This can’t be it.”

“This world is the House of Silence, nor are you out of it.  The Pyramid is protected.  A little.  For a little while longer. Here and there, other things from other places may have crept in.  But, beneath and above, this is their home.”

He saw the fear in her eyes.  She didn’t want to believe what he was saying but Belle knew the truth when she heard it. 

She looked exhausted enough to sleep for a week.  Instead, she struggled wearily to her feet.  “You could help me up,” she told him.

Rumplestiltskin shook his head.  “I can’t.  I’m . . . not here.  Not the way you are.”  He waved a hand to the ground.  “I don’t have a shadow.  Do you see?  If you tried to touch me, your hand would go straight through me.”

“Oh,” Belle wasn’t sure what to say to that.  “Is that why you aren’t wearing any armor?”

Rumplestiltskin glanced down at himself.  She wasn’t asking about leather pants or silk shirts.  “What do I look like to you?”

“Sorry?”

“What you see is a . . . memory, an image.” He decided not to explain _whose_ memory it might be, especially since he was no longer sure himself.  “What does it look like to you?”

“A . . . man,” Belle said. “Just an ordinary man.  Your clothes are different from mine, more worn.  You have kind eyes.”  She blushed and looked away.  “

His old self.  His human self.  Belle had never seen that, but it was what she saw..  Interesting.

“You, uh, do you have a limp?  I’m only asking because you have a—a—I don’t know what the word for it is.  It’s bigger than any cane I’ve seen but it’s not a crutch.  The color and lines, it looks like the floor in this place.  I don’t know what it’s made of either.”

“Wood,” he said. “It’s a staff made of wood.”

“Wood,” she repeated.  “That’s . . . organic stuff, isn’t it?  Grown from certain kinds of plants that live multiple years.  We don’t grow that kind.  It takes up too much energy and space that isn’t related to food production.”

“What, no apples in this world?  Regina must be disappointed.  Trust me, if you live in a world with light, wood is a useful thing to have. So are trees.” He shivered.  “I haven’t much time.  Call on me, if you need me.  Use the wheel.  Don’t use the rose. Not unless there’s no other choice.”  He looked at the Silent One.  “If you keep her safe, Zoso, I’ll owe you a debt.  If you fail, I’ll owe you for that, too.”

 _Zoso._ Belle looked back and forth between him and Silent One.  It had probably never occurred to her that a Silent One could have a name. 

And her strange, possibly demonic helper knew it.

 _You can trust me,_ he wanted to tell her.  _You may not understand why, but you can trust me._

But, it was too late.  He saw Belle mouthing a question, but heard only silence.  Cold glass stretched against his fingertips.  She was still on the other side of the mirror, and he was . . . gone.

X

Belle opened her eyes and blinked as dust got into them.  She’d had a dream.  Hadn’t she?  She was standing in an underground hall, the Silent One watching her with glowing eyes.

_Are we in the House of Silence?_

She wanted to ask the question but didn’t.  It was as if the question were the opposite of the Word, sounds that would summon darkness instead of driving it back.

_Was that real?_

Another question she didn’t dare ask.

“Lead on,” Belle said.

The Silent One (Zoso?) nodded and drifted down the hallway.  Belle followed.

X

Emma felt hands on her shoulders.  Sounds that might almost have been words echoed distantly.  She felt  _something_ flowing into her.  It was—

_Horrible._

_Delicious._

_Cloying._

_Sweet._

_—_ familiar and strange at the same time.

“Miss Swan?”

Words.  The sounds were words.  She almost understood them.

“Miss Swan—Emma—you need to take what I’m giving you and change it.  From dark to light.  They need it, Emma; and you’re the only one who can give it to them.”

_Light._

She . . . remembered.  Almost.  Magic is power.  Someone had told her that.  Power could be changed, one kind feeding another.  Like—like a lens made from ice used to focus light and make heat.  She could do this. 

Feed the magic inside her.  Strengthen the light.

Slowly, the room came back into focus.

Gold was kneeling across from her, his hands on her shoulders, concern etched across his face. 

“Miss Swan?  Are you all right?”

“What—what happened?”

“Ah, that.” Gold glanced at the mirror showing Happy Horror Holiday Land, aka the Underworld. “I was . . . drawn in.  In a sense.”

“You were here.  But, you were there, too.  And the you there didn’t have scales.”

“Oh?” Gold asked curiously.  “What did he look like?”

“Like you, the real—the Storybrooke you, Armani and gold cane and stuff.”

“Really?  How interesting.  My mind went there.  But, when it did. . . .  I’ve been trying to share some of my power with you, Miss Swan.  You understand that, don’t you?”

Emma nodded.  “You said the Pyramid is drawing on my magic, light magic, to keep everyone safe.”

“Yes, but there are limits.  You’ve already felt these.”

Emma nodded again.  “When Belle drove off the Dark Ones with the rose you gave her.  How did that even work?”

“I told you how Belle took the rose to a lower level of the Pyramid, didn’t I?  It was a garden, once.  And a cemetery.”

The cemetery had been in the middle of the night.  Unlike Gold, Emma needed to do things like eat and sleep.  And how had a place that had never been anything but a dark hole in the ground ‘once’ been a garden?  “You could have woken me up for that, you know.”

“You need rest, Miss Swan.

“Whatever.  You said Belle took the rose to something that looked like the Mills family tomb.”

“Indeed.  Inside, there was something that looked very much like your mother’s coffin, the glass one the dwarves made for her.  There was something—some _one_  inside, someone who did something to the rose, bestowing certain powers on it—and linking it to the power of the Pyramid.”

“My power.”

“Correct.  That’s what she drew on to drive the Dark Ones away.”

“I remember.  I felt like my guts were being ripped out.”  That had been bad.  It wasn’t just what was happening to her.  If Gold hadn’t helped her as quickly as he did, that might have been it for the barrier.

“Even in their weakened state, the Dark Ones are formidable.  Especially there, in their own realm.  Driving them back is no simple matter.  But, do you realize who helped Belle?  Who was in that coffin?”

“Regina?” Emma guessed.  “You said it was her name on the tomb.  That would be all kind of irony, Regina in Snow White’s coffin.”

“Indeed it would be.  But, no, the tomb said  _Reginae_ , belonging to the queen.  And, whoever is in there is drawing on  _your_ magic.  I suspect he manipulated the curse as well, the last fragments of it.  That’s what gave him the power to create the Pyramid, along with memories that let the people survive there.” He paused.  Emma had dealt with enough bad news to recognize when someone was getting ready to hit you with it.  “Storybrooke was shaped by Regina’s curse and by your mother’s,” Gold said carefully.  “Someone linked to both of them would have the best chance of taking what was left and making this. It also wouldn’t hurt if the person doing it had some link to the Dark Curse to help him deal with that world.”

Emma stared at him. “Henry?  You think—the Pyramid—my magic making the barrier—that’s all been done by  _Henry?”_

“Why not, Miss Swan?”

“Why not?  Because—because—why would Henry even make a place like that?  Aren’t castles and fairy tales more his thing?”

“And video games and comic books.  I’ve also seen some of the novels Henry likes to read.  What do they call it? Post-apocalyptic fiction? Stories where the last survivors of humanity are holding out in their final stronghold are very popular these days.  And it fits the nature of that place.”

“This is  _Storybrooke_ , not The Hunger Games. And—and—” she tried to think of another reason Gold had to be wrong. “What about that stupid rule?  Men can go into the Night and women can’t?  Where would  _Henry_  come up with something like that?” OK, he was a thirteen year old boy, but he was  _her_ thirteen year old boy and should know better.

Gold gave a sad laugh.  “Can’t you guess, Miss Swan?  This world, Henry’s part of it, was shaped by his own fears and dreams.  It’s built from things he  _feels_ , not things he thinks and knows.”

“Have you ever given anyone a straight answer?”

“More often than you’d think, for all the good it’s done.  Miss Swan, how many times have you nearly died trying to protect Henry and others?  While Henry couldn’t do anything to help?  How many times has he been the _reason_  you were in danger?  Henry wants to save everyone—he takes after you in that respect—But, if you asked him to picture one face to represent all the ones he wanted to keep safe, whose face would he see?  Just for once, Henry wants to be the one who faces the darkness while you and everyone else he loves stay safe.”

“But, he can’t leave the Pyramid.”

“No, he can’t.  And he helped Belle to go.  I don’t know if he remembers Storybrooke or not, but he’s still your son.  He knew what needed to be done.”

Henry.   _Henry_  was all that stood between everyone she loved and the Underworld destroying them. Maybe Gold had a point.  Right now, there was no end to the list of stupid rules Emma would make if it would keep Henry safe.

She remembered the power being torn out of her.  It was the worst pain she’d ever felt.  What was it doing to Henry?

If Gold was right.  Just because he usually was didn’t mean he had to be. “You don’t know,” Emma said.  “You don’t know it’s him.”

Gold laughed again, soft and sad. “I’m afraid I do, Miss Swan.  There’s a word the people from the Pyramid say to drive back darkness, a word that draws on that light magic just by being said or thought.  I’ve been able to send it to Belle when we communicate.  That’s why—” his mouth twisted bitterly, “—she thinks I’m not a demon.  When I was in that world and said it to her, it burned in my mouth.  I could only say it because, well, I  _am_ the Dark One, the most powerful one there’s ever been.”

“And humble,” Emma said. “Don’t leave that out.”

“With you around to remind me?  Never.  But, the other reason is much simpler.  Dark or light, I have a right to say my grandson’s name.”

 


	16. When Rules Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rumple's thoughts on the Underworld.

Being chased, caught, many arms pinning him to the ground—never mind that he didn’t understand  _how_.  Weren’t they dead and bodiless? What was there to grab hold  _of?—_ and the Pain forced into him, poured into mind and nonexistent flesh.  Phantom pain of a most literal sort. . . .

Watching the mirrors, it was impossible not to remember being dead.

The Pain, that was what they called it, the dead Dark Ones.  Rumple wondered if other dead experienced the same thing. It seemed depressingly likely.  It was too perfect a punishment.

The dead lived through the memories of all those they’d harmed.  Or (judging by Rumple’s own experience) the ones they’d harmed _wrongly_.  He’d never lived through a memory of Cora’s or Hook’s—not even Milah’s, though he was sure there was a debt there.

And never one of Bae’s.  Whether that was blessing or curse, he didn’t know.

Perhaps he just hadn’t been dead long enough to get to them.

But, that had left Pain enough.  And it wasn’t all.  It was the peculiar curse of the  _last_  Dark One that the others could share that Pain with him.  They found relief forcing it into him.

Now and then, there were mortals who found their way into the Underworld (as any dead soul could tell you, getting into the Underworld is easy. It’s getting out that’s the tricky part). Sooner or later they were caught.  Ghost after ghost forced their remembered Pain into the victims.

But, those were mortals.  A few days or a few hours, that’s all they were good for. There were also only so many memories they could hold at a time.  A Dark One’s capacity was nearly infinite.

Nimue said it was because he’d broken the chain.  He’d destroyed their hope of escape, their dream of walking once again in the daylight world.  Rumplestiltskin still remembered her cold fury.  Forgiveness hadn’t been part of her during life and death had done nothing to soften her. 

He was part of the chain, linked to all the ones who had gone before.  If he couldn’t free them from the Pain of death one way, he would free them another.

That was the world Belle was in, those were the enemies surrounding her.  One of them was walking only a few steps in front of her.

But, Zoso had never tortured him he reminded himself.

Not all of his brothers and sisters had heeded Hook’s call to come into Storybrooke and find their prey.  Not all of them had been so desperate to escape the shadows in their minds that they sought him out.  Whatever Rumplestiltskin might think of Zoso, he’d been content to live with his own past.

Rumplestiltskin looked at the tapestries in the mirror.  Was Zoso haunted by the children who had died in the war?  Did he live through their deaths, dying over and over again as they were slaughtered on the battlefield to buy a little more time for the seasoned warriors? 

He hoped not.  Rumplestiltskin knew what it was like to be ordered to kill by the one holding the dagger.  He knew what it was like to be powerless to fight those commands.  Surely— _surely_ _—_ those deaths weren’t Zoso’s fault.  In the end, he’d been willing to die rather than go on forcing children into that nightmare.  That had to be worth something.

Didn’t it?

Rumplestiltskin, looking at his own past, could only hope it was.

And, Zoso seemed willing to help Belle.  So far.  He’d helped her escape the others, the ones who had already tried to force feed their Pain to her.

Rumplestiltskin thought about what had happened on the Road.  There were rules, even in death, that bound his kind.  Belle should have had a short space of safety there.  But, she hadn’t.

The Pain was bad but it came and went (or it did if it wasn’t being forced down your throat).  It could also be pushed aside for a time, though there could be a cost if it were put off too long.  Once Belle had tried to defend herself, she stirred up the hornet’s nest. But, before that, no one should have been driven to madness with the need to attack her.

Or no one should have been driven to madness by the curse.  There were other kinds of madness, human kinds.

There was one Dark One who hated Rumplestiltskin for reasons that had nothing to do with his death and return— the same Dark One who, in his life before the curse, had tried to kill Belle for no other reason except her death would hurt him.

The same Dark One had already shown he was willing to take every man, woman, and child in Storybrooke and trap them in the Underworld for all eternity for no other reason besides a petty grudge.  He’d died claiming he wanted stop what he’d begun, but the result had trapped everyone in that nightmare world.  That was the curse Belle was trying to undo.  How far would he be willing to go to stop her?

Far enough to break the Road’s neutrality, Rumplestiltskin thought.  Far enough to break every rule that bound their kind if he could. 

There would be consequences, Rumplestiltskin thought.  He didn’t know what form they would take, but there would be consequences.  To Hook.  To the Dark Ones.  To the Underworld itself.  Rumplestiltskin didn’t know if the mortals trapped in that world would survive it.

He thought of the pirate he’d known.  The man tortured beggars and stole their coins for laughs.  He helped murder a village full of refugees who’d taken him in and offered him safety in a world where safety had become nothing more than a tale told to children.  He’d shot Belle in the back, putting a bullet a hairsbreadth from her heart bare hours after she’d saved his life.  He’d tried to kill (and worse than kill) the son of the woman he claimed to love for no other reason except it would hurt her.

The Dark One who had led the attack on Belle was Killian Jones.  He might be on the verge of destroying his world, and Rumplestiltskin didn’t know how to stop him.


	17. Shadow Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The youngest and the oldest of the Silent Ones talk.

The Silent Ones spread out over the barren land, looking for the human.  One Silent One, the youngest, prowled along the edge of a pit.   _It had to be here,_ the Silent One thought,  _it_ **had** _to._ It knew the human.  Its face was in the Silent One’s nightmares.   

Dreams were memories of a former life, so some of the others said.  The nightmares—and the Pain they brought—were other lives they had lived.

The Silent One didn’t see why that should be so.  Whatever had happened was in the past.  Why should they have to suffer for it?  And, if it was the Silent One’s past life, what did the human have to do with it?

But, it had seen that human, time and again, reliving the pathetic creature’s pain, or watching it suffer through the eyes of some other mortal who actually cared about the wretched thing.

It had seen the human flee through rooms full of ancient tomes, pursued by another of its kind with a metal hook for a hand.  Another time, it watched as the human received what  _should_ have been a death blow, a piece of metal lodging near its heart.  Instead, it lived.  It  _always_ lived.  Even when the human was chained and beaten by an enraged mortal, one bent on killing it, it somehow survived. 

In the visions the Silent One felt pain and horror.  But, when it was in its own mind, it only had resentment for the weak creatures whose lives—and deaths—it was forced to witness. 

This human especially.  It was cowardly and weak, running instead of fighting.  Chained and helpless, it had tried to  _reason_ with the human that had nearly killed it.

Every memory, every  _thought_ of that creature filled him with rage, more rage than memories of the strange, weakling, puling human it sometimes saw with her.  Small, brown-eyed like some helpless, half-grown beast, it knew it hated that human with a fury that had burned inside it as long as it could remember.

Until it saw this human.  Alive.    _Here._  Somehow it knew— _knew_ —hurting this creature would hurt that one even more.  It remembered this human begging the other to show mercy and being heard.  It didn’t know why, but its anger boiled at the memory, the  _humiliation_.

It would find the human and it would force it to live through the echoes—the Pain—the memories—whatever those things were—till it died screaming.  It scanned the dark, barren horizon one more time, looking for the creature’s small spark of life.

Then, it felt the call.

It ignored it.  This was what mattered.  Let one of the others fetch and carry.  It had work to do.

The call came again, insistent.

 _No,_  it answered back.

It had expected anger, even threats.  Instead, there was only amusement.  Something pulled on it, like a stray thread being tied back into place.

The Night was gone.  It stood within the House of Silence.

X

The insides of the House were always shifting, changing.  Nowhere was that truer than in the center of House, in the Heart of Silence itself.  Today, it was a place of endless, gray mists.  No horizon, no sky, only swirling strands of light and shadow.

The Mother of Silence was also there, watching him.

At first, she looked no different than any other Silent One, a ghost made of darkness and glowing eyes wrapped in a tattered cloak.  But, it could sense the power that had brought it here, and her cloak darkened, the tattered edges smoothing as she approached.  Every inch of her became more regal the closer she came.  She was as proud and imposing as any queen.  When she reached him, she pushed back her hood, and the Silent One saw her face. 

Green as verdigris drawn from the sea, eyes blacker than Night’s empty skies.  She was beautiful, the Silent One thought, her face as calm and composed as the death masks of ancient kings.

_Why did you not answer my call?_

The question was mild, without anger, but it touched a raw wound inside the Silent One.

 _The human,_ it told the Mother.   _It is in the Pain I suffer, the memories I must live.  That human was here.  I would have found it, if you hadn’t called me away._

 _Would you?_   The Mother seemed amused.    _There are others helping her.  I doubt you would have succeeded._

 _I would have!  I would make that one_ pay _for what’s done to us!  Let it suffer and see how it likes it!_

Again, that sense of amusement.   _Do you know what the Pain is?_ The Mother asked.   _Our kind do not die, not truly.  But, when we are driven out of life, we come here.  While we wait for our chance to return, some of the rules of death apply to us._ The Mother’s perfect features contorted in a grimace.   _Mortal creatures must pay for their weaknesses in life.  The wrongs they commit, the harms they do, in this place, they feel them, they pay the price and learn the truth of what they did._

 _Mortal creatures!_ The Silent One snarled.   _We’re not human.  What does it matter what we do to them?  Why should_ we  _pay a price by_ their  _rules?_

The Mother shrugged.   _We shouldn’t.  But, in the beginning, this place was built for them, a slice of their Underworld.  It is ours, now.  But, we must still play by its rules. For now.  Till the world is set right._

She smiled at him.   _You almost did that, Killian._

_Killian?_

_It is your name.  Dear boy, precious child, you alone had the courage and wits to call us back.  But, you were fooled in the end.  The worst of my children turned against you.  You were tricked and you died.  Then, even your memory of what you had lost was taken from you._

The Mother of Silence looked at him with her eyes that went on forever.   _It wasn’t fair,_ she told him.   _All your sacrifice was for nothing.  Because of him. But, we can make him pay._

She reached out towards the mists.  The image of the human spun to life in them.  The Silent One felt the anger burn in it again.

 _You will not harm her,_ the Mother said.   _Not yet.  The one who betrayed you, betrayed us, he stole the power that should have been ours, but he can still finish the work you began.  He can let us back into our rightful place in the living world.  And he will._

The Silent One shook its head.   _No, the human has to pay!_

The Mother of Silence smiled.   _Now  he has his power back, it’s time for him to do something for us. Because, powerful as he is, we still have magic and this is still_ our  _realm.  I don’t think he’ll be willing to wager we can’t get to her and destroy her before he can stop us. He won’t take that chance._

 _It’s not enough,_ the Silent One said.  _We suffer, while he goes free._

The Mother stirred the mists again.  They formed into the shape of the Pyramid, the Last Redoubt.   _The barrier is dying,_ she told him.   _Not long ago, I saw it flicker and vanish.  It was only for a moment, but it is falling at last._

 _When it falls,_ she said,  _all the humans inside will be ours.  You and the others may take them and play with them as you wish.  All but one._ Once again, she gave him her beautiful smile.   _There is one I claim.  A child sleeps in the heart of Pyramid in a coffin of glass.  You will bring him to me.  When my traitor child makes his bargain to save the woman he loves, he will think he can still save the others once she’s freed.  We will give him their corpses, and I will kill this child before his eyes. He will die screaming._ That _will be our revenge._

 


	18. Remembrance of Things Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zoso and Belle look at art.

The Silent One led the human through the tunnels after the Last One left, its mind spinning.

It remembered the Last One.  Other fragments of the past slid through its memory, like scattered shards of a broken mirror flying past it, reflecting a pieces of a world it could almost recognize.

The Last One.  It remembered the Last One.  But, not like this.  The Last One it remembered was barely a shadow of the creature  it recalled—or the Silent Ones themselves were bare shadows of what they had once been.

It remembered the doorway opening, the call going out.  The awaited day, some said, light and life to be theirs again ( _Life_. An odd word.  It meant something the Silent One could not quite remember, something that divided this human creature from the rest of them).

Some had gone to the doorway, following the clarion call.  The Silent One had watched them go and turned away. 

The others had returned, and the Silent Ones—all of them—had been diminished.  It could not remember how or why.  But, the creature it had seen, the Last One, it shone with a terrible glory the Silent One could almost remember.

It led the human through the tunnels, passing the images hanging from the walls.  It saw a creature it knew was itself torturing the parents of a frightened child.

 _Parents. Child._ Those were other, strange words.  It meant something like and unlike the links that bound the Silent Ones.  The meaning hovered at the edge of its mind.  When the Pain came, it was quite sure it understood them. 

But, not now.  Now, all it knew was that these images stirred up the same feelings it had had on the bridge when the others tried to attack this human.  These things were . . . wrong.

Other images passed, losses, angers, griefs.  Some it seemed to recognize, some it did not.

“Wait,” the human said. 

The Silent One turned.  The human had stopped by a painting.  A broken vase carved from jade, welded back together with seams of gold, stood before it on a table carved from rosewood, like an offering.  It was nothing unusual, another Silent One’s past and Pain.  But, this one—this one had the human in it.

X

The pictures seemed to whisper to Belle as they hurried past them. 

 _They thought they could escape,_ laughed a shadow soaring over a field of dead.

A pale figure stood trapped at the window of a ruined house.   _She traded all their lives to inherit,_ a woman giggled.   _I took them all, and now she’ll never leave it._

Soldiers left off bandaging their wounded as the trumpet sounded, summoning them back to battle.  Far away, a hooded figure watched.   _My life had become such a burden._

_Revenge is sweet. . . ._

_I have broken what can’t be mended. . . ._

_If the world burns, then let it burn. . . ._

_Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. . . ._

_I will love nothing. . . ._

Belle stopped and turned.  She knew that voice.

There was a painting on the wall.  A man—no, not a man.  Some kind of Abhuman, scaled and clawed, dressed in fanciful clothes.  His shirt, like the small bag that held the gold wheel Jefferson had given her, was made of  _silk._ The rest was made of . . . of . . .  _leather._ That was what it was called:  _leather._

He stood protectively, standing between a human woman and an ocean of dangers , grim and unseen.  His expression was firm and resolute. 

And yet—and yet—

That was the picture looked at from one angle.  Looked at from another, the woman was about to take the first step in walking away.  She looked lost and abandoned.  From this side, the Abhuman’s protectiveness was invisible.  His back, turned against her, was cold and rejecting.  Whatever danger he was looking at, he didn’t see the dark shadows behind him, already reaching for her.

But, the woman.  Her clothes were as fanciful as his.  She wore a blue  _dress_ with a wide  _skirt_ (Where had she learned these words?  How did she know them?) _._ At least, the man’s clothes looked practical.  He could run and fight in them, with no loose cloth to be grabbed onto to pull him back.

 _She died,_ the voice whispered.   _That’s the thing about true love, dearie, it can slip through your fingers. . . ._

The woman.

She was weaponless.  She wore strange clothes, impossible to fight in, like nothing Belle had ever seen.

Her face was Belle’s face.

 _She died,_ the voice whispered.

_A brief flicker of light in an ocean of darkness._

Anger, grief, rage, guilt, they washed over her, memories of what had been lost.

_She died._

_I didn’t,_ she tried to whisper back.   _I didn’t die.  She lied, Rumple.  The queen lied._

Rumple.

Rumplestiltskin.

She . . . knew this Dark One's name.  Rumplestiltskin.

This picture . . . it was a memory.  No, not a memory. Guilt, this picture was guilt—the guilt Rumple felt for what . . . Regina?  Reginae?  The name meant Queen, the Queen and what belonged to her.  She had done something terrible, something that hovered at the edge of Belle's memory.  Darkness.  Cold.  Being trapped.

All these pictures, all these images, they were the memories and sins of the . . . Silent Ones?  Dark Ones?  The names warred in her thoughts, but she could no longer remember which was right and which was wrong. 

She looked down at the jade and gold vase in front of the painting.  For a moment, the green shards with their golden veins reminded her of a tree.  Then, it was a man screaming in agony.

_Merlin._

The images that had floated through her mind on the road, they were the Silent Ones’ crimes but seen through the eyes of their victims, crimes so old, they had been committed in lands of light. 

The sailor boy whose past she had lived through, the pirate who killed him was Hook.

Hook was here. 

And he remembered. 


	19. Final Journey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle reaches the end of her journey

“Merlin,” the human breathed.

That name, there was something familiar about it to the Silent One.  It was old, so old, and almost forgotten. 

 _Before any of us were,_ the Silent One thought.  _Before the Mother of Silence herself._

“Hook.”

Another, newer name.  Full of anger and hate.

There were words, human words, the Silent One half-remembered.  _Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing._ That was what that name meant.

“He’s a murderer,” the human said.  A strange look passed over its features.  “He’s dead.”

Dead. 

Yes, that was it.

They were all dead, reliving memories of the past, the harm they’d done, the hurts they’d given.  How strange to have forgotten.  Only, now and then, finding relief as they poured the chain of horrors into the youngest, newest of their kind.

Or into one of the living.  If they could find one.  If they could catch one.

The Silent One remembered the long, long time when it had been the youngest of the host, as if its own memories weren’t bad enough.  And yet. . . .

And yet, it had been satisfied in its way.  For all their horrors, these were _memories._ They were shadows of the past, nothing more.  Their number did not increase.  Whatever the Silent One had done or failed to do, there were no new scores being added to that tally.

So, when at long last, a new child joined their number, the Silent One did not seek it out to buy a short relief from its own past, content to know they were _past_ and over.

Besides . . . perhaps it was right to remember.  The children it had led off to battle, who else was there to remember their faces?  The stories of their too brief lives?

Then, the chain had been broken.  The youngest had been taken back.  Not long after, had come the calling, opening the way to the sunlit world for all of them.  Some had answered.  Some had not.  The Silent One remained behind, uninterested in adding to its nightmares.

Then, the door had been closed.  The others were back, a new youngest among them.  And the world had . . . changed.  Or had it?  Wasn’t the world just as it always was? 

It had not heard of any of the others finding the youngest and making it carry their pasts.  Was it protected, somehow?  Or. . . .

Had they forgotten?

“He’s dead,” the human repeated.

The Silent One nodded and tried to answer the question it hadn’t asked.  It indicated itself, then, with a sweeping gesture, it tried to indicate everything around it.

“You’re dead?” the human asked.  It’s voice, for some reason, sounded brittle and weak, as if it were about to shatter.

The Silent One nodded.

“You’re _all_ dead?”

Another nod.

In a very small voice, the human asked, “Am I dead?  Everyone in the Pyramid, are they dead?”

The Silent One considered.  Were they?  They were here.  Shouldn’t they be?

But, dead creatures couldn’t hold the memories, could they?  It wasn’t certain, but . . . it shook its head.  No, her people weren’t dead. 

Not yet.

X

Belle followed the Silent One through long halls and twisting corridors.  She tried not to look at the strange pictures and carvings (memories, she refused to call them memories) that decorated the shifting walls.  She tried not to look at the thick _carpets_ beneath her feet, gold shot with red, like streams of blood running along the ground.

They met no one else in the halls.  It should have made Belle feel safer, but it didn’t.  If there were no Silent Ones here in their own house, then where were they?  What were they doing? 

Shadows still crept along the walls, pausing now and then to stretch out long tendrils.  Like eyestalks, Belle thought, as if they were trying to get a glimpse of her.  Or like tentacles, reaching out.

Whatever they were, they stopped short of touching her.  Those that came too close cringed back.  _Like scorched fingers_ , Belle thought. 

The Silent One stopped. Behind it was a door.  It hadn’t been there a moment before, but it wasn’t as if it had suddenly appeared.  Belle had the strange feeling, as if she had been looking at a picture from the wrong angle, not even recognizing it was a picture till, suddenly, it was.  The door had always been there, whether or not she recognized it for what it was. 

And she did recognize it, though she didn’t know how.  It was a dark, metal door, like the door of a cell, with a small slot on the other side, one that could be lifted by someone wanting to look in.

She knew this door.  She remembered being trapped, dark eyes staring at her out of the darkness.  Jefferson had stepped through a door like this, once, telling her there was someone she needed to find on the other side.

_He’ll protect you.  But, you need to tell him—you need to tell him—_

The memory slipped away.  She remembered their last meeting, when Jefferson gave her the _flower_.  Wasn’t that what he’d told her?  The words were different, but there was a place she needed to go, someone she needed to find.  He would help them.  He would save them, if anyone could.

The Silent One stood by the door expectantly.

Belle pulled out the sphere with the gold and red flower inside.  It spun about, almost as if it were searching.  Then, the gold petal settled in place, pointing to the door.

 _It won’t open,_ Belle thought.  She’d never seen such a door—but she remembered trying to pull it open, always hoping _this_ time it would work.  It never did.

There was a story—she did not know where she had read it because it could not possibly belong to the archives in the Pyramid, even the oldest and maddest of them—of a boy carried off by a spirit of winter and death who had promised him his freedom if he could only put together the puzzle pieces of a magic word.  If he did, he would choose his own fate and have the whole world before him, to travel as he chose.

In that fragment of a dream, she had never had the power to step out of her cell, not till someone came with the key of knowing who she was.

And who was she?  Who was she, really?

She didn’t know.  Her name, her memories, everything she knew were pieces of a puzzle that didn’t fit together.  She didn’t even know if she were dead or alive.

Belle closed her eyes, trying to look inside.  _I am the person who will not give up.  I will not let my people down, not while I can help it.  If I can’t open a door, I will find a way to break it down or walk through it._

She put her hand against it and pulled.

The door opened out onto the Night.

Belle looked down at the _flower_.  It pointed the way.  As she stepped out, her diskos held ready, the Silent One drifted in her wake.

There was a barren, empty foothill that rose up into a mountain.  Or Belle supposed it did.  It vanished into darkness.  But, far above, she could see lights burning.

 _Like a lighthouse,_ she thought before realizing she didn’t know what a lighthouse was.

_A guide, a light to show the safe road when all other ways are dangerous._

The flower swirled in her hand.  She took a step up.  The flower spun, pointing back to where she’d been.  She took a few more, experimental steps.  Always, the flower pointed her back. 

 _Why?  What’s here?_   It seemed as empty as any other piece of ground here. 

Not sure if it would help or not, Belle put the flower down on the ground.  After a moment, she got out the golden wheel and put it down beside it.  Still nothing.

She pressed her fingers against the wheel.  _Hello?  Can you hear me?  Can you help?_

The flower kept spinning, just as it had before.

No, not quite as before.  It was becoming faster.  Beside it, the wheel glinted in the dark.  By the light of the diskos, it seemed brighter than ever. 

And growing brighter.  The gold on the _flower_ sparkled as well, making a wheel of gold as it spun.  A small sun, if there had ever been such things as suns.

 _It weakens the barrier,_ Belle remembered.  Using the flower would weaken the barrier until it crumbled.

 _Don’t,_ she told it.  _Stop.  I didn’t mean it._

Distantly, she thought she heard mad laughter tinged with sadness.

_Oh, sweetheart, intention means so little in this or any other world._

Light exploded all around her, brighter than any Day inside the Pyramid, enveloping her.

And, then, there was nothing, only a dark, empty piece of ground on a barren hill.


	20. Watchers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What Jefferson saw.

Jefferson made the long climb up to the watchpoint at the top of the pyramid despite his injuries, stopping frequently to rest.  The part of him that remembered Storybrooke thought it looked Victorian, _tacky_  Victorian, full of brass and mahogany.  Or something that looked like mahogany.  No one wasted the time and energy it took to grow wood in this world.

The place was full of windows.  Not glass, not as he knew it, though none of Jefferson’s memories, cursed or not, couldt offer up any other name to call it.  It was, thankfully, much stronger than any glass.  When the barrier failed at last, the Pyramid’s many windows wouldn’t break any faster than its walls.

Though they would all break in the end.

For now, the Monstruwacans, as they were called, went about their business as calmly as they ever did.  Those by the glass watched through telescopes or naked eyes, making notes and observations.  Others filed the notes or sat at desks, going over data and maps.  Was the pit watcher more restless?  Were these monsters or those monsters creeping closer or in greater numbers?  This was where it would be noted.

The mathematics of their survival.  How much closer were the terrors outside than they had been the day before? The hour before? How much longer did they have?

No one spoke of the barrier flickering.

_Belle, what have you done?_

What had _he_ done when he’d told Belle to go to Rumpelstiltskin?

“Jefferson, what are you doing here?” the Master Monstruwacan asked.  “Shouldn’t you still be with the healers?”

Jefferson shrugged, hoping that would serve for an answer.  _I shouldn’t be here; but, since I am, you might as well answer my questions._ “How are things going, ma’am?”

“The same as always,” the Master Monstruwacan said.  She was a heavy set, dark skinned woman.  In Storybrooke, she had been a nurse.  Jefferson supposed, in a twisted sort of way, checking on people day after day, looking for the signs that they would live or die, had qualified her to watch for monsters.  Right now, she was trying to sound casual, but Jefferson saw the bleakness in her eyes. 

“Belle?” Jefferson asked.  He didn’t need to say anything more. 

The Master Monstruwacan looked grim.  “The case has been logged.  We saw a figure fleeing out of the Pyramid.  The alarm was raised immediately, but. . . .” She shrugged helplessly.

Jefferson understood.  Once you were outside the barrier’s protection, you were on your own.  If Belle had stopped a short distance from the Pyramid, maybe— _maybe_ —an exception would have been made.  But, it was unlikely.

 _Terrible things happen to people who try to cross the town line,_ Jefferson thought.

“Did she survive?” he asked.

Another helpless shrug.  “She did well for herself.  Better than I would have expected.  Till she reached the Road Where the Silent Ones Walk.”

“What?” That soon?  Belle had failed that soon? “No one’s ever been attacked on the road!”

“No woman’s ever been in the Night Land.  Maybe that made a difference.  Maybe it was something else.”

“They—they killed her?”  If Belle had died before even beginning her quest. . . .  _He won’t forgive us,_ Jefferson thought.  _He won’t forgive_ me.

And, without Rumplestiltskin’s help, Grace would die.  They would all die.

“I don’t know,” the Master Monstruwacan said.  “It was strange, like nothing I’ve ever seen before—nothing in all the records.  They attacked, swarmed her, but one of them fought of the others.  She ran and vanished from sight.  We could see the others searching.  They’ve been restless since then.  I don’t think they found her.”

So, there was hope, Jefferson thought.  There was still hope.

The Master Monstruwacan didn’t question Jefferson or ask him what he knew.  It was just as well.  Jefferson wasn’t entirely sure he wouldn’t have answered.  Who knew?  Perhaps, in this world, they would have believed him.  This wasn’t the Land Without Magic, a world that prided itself on its rationality (“rationality,” as Jefferson had learned, meant not admitting what was happening right in front of you if it meant questioning in the smallest way what you thought you knew).

Jefferson saw the Silent Ones for the first time as he watched the town with his telescope and saw the dark figures with the glowing eyes Hook had summoned to destroy them.  He saw the fear in Gold’s eyes as they reached out to him.

But, Jefferson also saw Gold pulling back the savior as the world fell apart around them.  He _saw_ the power shining in the old wizard’s eyes, and he knew there was still a chance. 

He’d been right, he reminded himself.  Anyone could navigate the doors in his hat, but only after he had already opened them—only after he had already called them into being where there had been nothing before.  That was the instinct that sent him out into the Night, searching for the doorway he knew had to be there.

He’d been right.  And he’d been right to send Belle out into the Night as well.  The Dark One had broken worlds before to save someone he loved.  He would do it again for her.

If he wasn’t satisfied to save her and let the rest of them rot.

If he could save them at all.

If Belle even lived long enough to find him and complete the deal.

“Ma’am?” one of the Monstruwacans said.  “Something’s happening.  I don’t understand it.”

“What is it?” the Master Monstruwacan said, coming to the window.

“I don’t know, ma’am.  I’ve never seen this before.”

Jefferson recognized the high, strained note in the junior Monstruwacan’s voice.  He’d heard it often enough in the last world.  It was the sound of rationality, the high note of fear when you don’t want to admit what is right in front of you because it means the world as you know it no longer exists.

Looking out the windows, far below, Jefferson could see them.  The Silent Ones were leaving their road and making their way over the barren, empty world. 

The Watcher in the Flames turned and fled into its pit. The creepers, less wise, crawled or lurched or slithered across the ground towards them, only to collapse into dust if they brushed against one of the robed figures.  The Silent Ones continued on, ignoring the ones who died and the ones who fled.

“They’re coming to the Pyramid,” Jefferson said.  “They’re coming for _us._ ”


	21. The Other Side of the Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happened to Belle.

The air was so moist, it was almost like breathing water.  Scents filled it, smells she didn’t even have a name for, a kaleidoscope of odors, a thousand shades of sweet, of tart.  Some were rich and overwhelming, others so gentle they were almost lost in the cacophony.  Water, that was the only one she knew.  The air was drowning with the smell of water.

She looked up and gasped.  It was _sky_.  This was what the ancients had written of, the jewel blue they had made poems and songs praising.  It was full of lights, more lights than she could count.  Most were small and white, glittering gems in the jewel sky.  This was what they’d meant by _stars._   It was more than she had ever imagined—more than she _could_ have imagined.  How could any mind find words to hold this wonder?

But, more beautiful, more overwhelming than the stars was the huge disk of light rising in the _sky._   It was a mix of white and pale shadow, a halo of gold surrounding it.  This was what the ancients had called the _sun_.  This was what they’d meant by _day_ , not her people’s poor imitation. _This._

She was kneeling.  She didn’t know if she had stumbled coming into this world or if she had sunk to her knees, overwhelmed by everything around her.  That could have killed her in the Night.  A second’s inattention could kill her.  It nearly had.  Several times.  But, here, it scarcely seemed to matter.  It was impossible to feel afraid surrounded by such overpowering beauty.

Belle tore her eyes away from the sky and tried to look around her.  She was kneeling on something soft and green, thin leaves growing wild out of the ground, not carefully nurtured in hydroponics.  She dug her hands in, feeling the crumbling looseness of _ground_.  It had a strange, dark scent, like nothing she’d ever encountered.  It mixed with the scent of leaves crushed beneath her, sharp and fresh.

She was in some kind of clearing covered with the thin, short plants.  At the edge of it were taller plants— _flowers_ , she realized, like the one in her sphere.  But, on a few were deep red.  She saw whites and pinks, gold as bright as the _sun_ ’s halo, blues as rich as the _sky_.  Beyond them, stranger, taller plants grew, hundreds of limbs covered in leaves reaching up to the _sky_.

And there were sounds.  A strange, almost music, a crystal sound, repeating yet never quite the same.  There was also something like the rustling of pages, as if dozens of scholars were searching hundreds of books.  Besides all that, she heard a faint, _kree-kree-kree_ coming from everywhere.  She imagined thousands of tiny musicians tuning their strings.

She looked for where it could be coming from.  It was only then she became aware of a light behind her.  Turning, she saw a building.  It was infinitely smaller than the Pyramid.  Lights caught in glass burned by its doors and windows— _open_ doors and windows, no barriers between them and the world outside, not even simple bars to keep out the weakest of dangers.  Unless the light itself was a barrier.

 _Or they don’t need barriers,_ she thought.  _They don’t_ need _protections._

It was a mad, drunken thought, a child’s dream.  She had not believed in safety— _true­_ safety—since she was five years old and a mother had driven back the monster that slipped past all the Pyramid’s protections to attack her.  But, here, in this world, it might be true.

There was a figure standing in the doorway watching her.

“Belle?” he said, his voice low and hoarse.

She rose unsteadily to her feet.  “I’m Belle.  Where am I?  What is this place?”

“Home,” the man said.  “You’ve come home.”


	22. Rose Garden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rumplestiltskin and Emma greet Belle.

Gold watched the mirror as Zoso showed Belle the door she needed to go through.  In the House of Silence, that door took the shape of the door to Belle’s cell under the hospital, the one she’d spent twenty-eight years locked behind.

Rumplestiltskin understood.  One side of that door meant being trapped in a curse.  The other side meant the chance of breaking free from it. Regina may have cast the curse, but a Dark One had shaped it.  Along with all the other, broken memories of the Dark Ones’ sins decorating its halls, that door had earned its place in the House of Silence

Belle went through.  He held his breath as she found the spot where the Hatter had placed his hat, the rose leading her to it.  He watched as she completed the parts of the spell, pressing her fingers against the golden wheel.

_Hello?  Can you hear me?  Can you help?_

“Now, Miss Swan,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders.  This wouldn’t be easy.  He had to feed her power and feed it to the rough spell embedded in the wheel and in the binding between him and Belle all at the same time. 

The rose began to spin and glow. 

“That’s it,” Rumplestiltskin said.  “The door’s opening.  We’re doing it.” 

Belle looked at what she’d done in horror.  Of course.  Rumplestiltskin had warned her using the rose could bring down the Pyramid.  It drew on Emma’s powers, as did the barrier.  If Emma faltered, if the two of them couldn’t keep up the power to protect the others while bringing Belle through, then everyone trapped in that world would die.  The Silent Ones would hunt them down, torturing them till they died.  From pain.  From horror.  From pure fear. 

Or not.  The armor Belle wore had a small capsule of poison.  Everyone’s did.  Because, they knew there were worse things than death out there.  

Gods, imagine saving the people trapped there, pulling them free of the Underworld, only to be mistaken for an even worse monster, and having them die to escape him. 

Except he was a worse monster.  And they had every right not to trust him.  Even Belle— _especially_ Belle. 

_Don’t,_ Belle told the spinning flower.  _Stop.  I didn’t mean it._

_Too late,_ Rumplestiltskin thought, _too late._ The sad thing was, Belle might be right.  He and Miss Swan might be on the verge of destroying everything, and what would his good intentions count for, then? 

He laughed sadly, already knowing the answer.  _Oh, sweetheart, intention means so little in this or any other world._

Light exploded in the mirror, and Belle was gone. 

“Where is she?” Emma said.  “What happened?”  Her voice rose in panic, her attention slipping from the spell.  “What went _wrong?”_

“The barrier!” Rumplestiltskin snapped, he could feel the magic slipping away, felt the pain of trying to feed his own into instead.  “Focus on the barrier!” 

“But—” 

“ _Focus,_ Miss Swan!  Or they’ll die.  Remember?” 

At least, this time, she didn’t glare at him.  She actually did what he said.  He felt her attention turn back to Henry and the others, strengthening the protection her son kept anchored around them.  Rumplestiltskin had to split his attention between feeding her power and seeing it was used properly and between making sure the door to the Underworld didn’t simply vanish. 

_A door,_ he thought.  Not one of Jefferson’s doors, one that never let more back than it let through.  Not a simple, opening-and-closing door that anyone who found could go through.  His _own_ door, magic that answered only to _him._

“Gold?” Emma said.  “Rumplestiltskin?  Are you OK?” 

He nodded.  “Just tying off the last few threads,” he said.  He looked over his work, making sure it was secure.  “It should hold,” he told her.  _For now._ But, that was the best they could hope for in any of this.  For _now._

"What happened?  Where’s Belle?” 

“Here,” Rumplestiltskin assured her.  Emma didn’t look assured. 

“In this world,” he clarified.  “Nearby.”  He concentrated, looking for where the magic ripples had gone, and headed towards the gardens.  Emma came after him. 

“Why didn’t she come through the mirror?” 

“The mirror was a focus.  For Jefferson, that made it a doorway he could find.  Belle had a focus with her, two objects from this world, gold I spun and a rose she tended.  Where else would she be but the rose garden?” 

“You have _roses?_ ”

“Is there any reason I shouldn’t?”

“It just seems a little too fairy tale even for y—Oh, Belle likes them, doesn’t she?”

He rolled his eyes.  “This way, Miss Swan.”  Not that he’d bothered with regular roses before Belle came.  Their wild cousins grew rosehips, popular in the Frontlands for keeping off scurvy, an illness a surprising number of people still called on him to cure.  He’d always kept a good number of the plants.  But, he’d never grown anything just because . . . because . . . because it was _pleasant_ to look at before he knew Belle.

He found her in the garden, as he’d expected.  Not that he’d doubted.  Really.  The spell had worked exactly the way it was supposed to.  Just as he’d known it would, despite the way he breathed in relief and the way he stared at her, not quite daring to believe she was really here at last.

Rumplestiltskin’s stared mutely at her, unable to find any words, till she stared and looked at him.  “Belle,” he whispered.

There was no recognition in her eyes.  She looked at him . . . not _fearfully._ Dear gods, please, not fearfully.  But, warily, not certain who he was.  “I’m Belle,” she said cautiously (names had power.  Did she remember that?  Were bits and pieces of her past coming through?).  “Where am I?  What is this place?”

“Home,” Rumplestiltskin said, his voice shaking. “You’ve come home.”  He took a step towards her.  He wanted to rush towards her, to take her in her arms, to kneel at her feet, to weep and promise her never again, she would never be in danger ever again because of him, lie though that likely was.

There was a hand on his shoulder.  “Wait,” Emma said. “Gold, what is that behind her?”

Rumplestiltskin couldn’t think of anything that could be behind Belle here that mattered, but he still looked.  Ah, he saw what worried Miss Swan, the gray, tattered ghost flickering uncertainly behind Belle.  “Didn’t you see him in the mirror?  A Silent One, Belle called him.”

“A Dark One,” Emma said.

“That too.  But, not one you have to be afraid of.” A mad thing to say.  Rumplestiltskin remembered his time in the Underworld.  There was nothing a Dark One needed to fear as much as another Dark One.

But, Zoso had never been among the ones who attacked him, and Rumplestiltskin had watched him protecting Belle.  Or protecting her as much as he was able.  Rumplestiltskin was wary of him—he knew exactly where trusting Zoso had landed him three hundred years ago—but he thought he understood him.

“Why?  You think he won’t try to put his mark on us?”

“He’s had plenty of time to mark Belle.  He hasn’t, has he?”

“I thought he couldn’t, not in the Underworld.”

“He’s not in the Underworld.  Since the moment they came here, he could have marked Belle to take her place in this world.  He hasn’t.  Therefore, he won’t.”

“You expect me to trust him?”

“No.  Never.  But, you might trust me.  I know this one.”

“Because he was a crazy voice in your head?”

“Before that.  I knew him when he was alive.  At the end, life was a burden.  Death was better than going on as he had, knowing what he’d become.”  His predecessor had been dying when he picked on Rumple to succeed him, his heart turning black.  Being enslaved sped up the process, as Rumple knew all too well.  Even if he’d freed himself, Zoso had precious little time left.  He’d had one way to preserve what was left of his soul and he took it.

Belle broke in before Miss Swan could continue arguing.  “You—who are you?” She looked wildly from him to Emma to Zoso.  “Are you dead?”

Ah, not an illogical question, given the ghost behind her.  “I’m alive,” Rumplestiltskin held up his empty hands, trying to look harmless.  He took a step towards Belle.  “You’re safe here.  I know you’ve been through a lot, but you’re safe.” He took another step.

It was a mistake.  That step took him nearer to one of the many lamps burning around them.  Their light was dim but, this close, it was enough for Belle to see the scales on his face and the claws on his hands.  She gasped, stepping back and raising her weapon—a _diskos_ , she’d called it.  But, the diskos didn’t light up the way it would have in the Underworld.  Belle stared at it then looked around the garden, trying to spot a way out.  “How—”

Before she could ask whatever she was going to ask, Rumplestiltskin felt magic whisper past him.  The spell caught Belle.  Her eyes rolled up in the back of her head, and she slumped to the ground.

Rumplestiltskin appeared by her side and caught her before she finished falling.  He turned and glared at Miss Swan.  “Was that necessary?”

“She has a poison capsule!  She was going to use it!”

“She was looking for a way out of the garden!  We frightened her!”

“Because you look like a monster—”

“Thank you so much, Miss Swan.” Not that she didn’t have a point.  He should have made himself look human.  But, this was _Belle._   She’d never been frightened of looks before, not even when she first saw him in her father’s war room.

“—and she carries poison in case she gets caught by monsters!  How did you think that was going to work out?”

“If she were going to take poison the first time she saw monsters, she never would have made it this far.” 

“It’s right there in her armor,” Emma said.  “She can get to it with a turn of her head if she can’t use her hands.  And she was turning her head.”

“The other way,” Rumplestiltskin said.  He remembered watching Belle double check that the capsule holder was full and working before she’d left the Pyramid.  It had told him more than he wanted to know about life in that world, but it had obviously been a mistake to let Miss Swan see that.  “Tell me, Miss Swan, were you this trigger-happy hunting bail-jumpers?  How did any of them survive?”  He shook his head.  “Never mind.  Stay here and talk to Zoso.”  He vanished in a puff of smoke.

Emma turned to the frail, deadly wisp.  She wasn’t sure, but he seemed to be watching her as uncertainly as she was watching him.

“Zoso?” she asked.  “You’re name is really _Zoso?_ ” She looked at him unbelievingly.  “And I thought Rumplestiltskin had it bad,” she muttered.


	23. The Daylight World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle sees light.

Belle woke slowly, with no sense of panic or fear until she began to take in her surroundings.  This wasn’t the dormitory where she slept in her narrow bed surrounded by other women, weapons near at hand, guards making their rounds.  Here, she lay alone in a bed big enough for three or four.  It was hung with heavy fabric, making a small cell where it was impossible to see whatever dangers might be around her.

She pushed the fabric aside.  It was made of strange, heavy stuff.  Soft, almost like a living thing, sewn over with patterns of gold.  She was in a large room, empty of people.  Large swathes of cloth, patterns of flowers and beasts with wings worked into them, covered the floor, like the hangings in the House of Silence.  Strange, carved boxes where littered about. Words she didn’t understand came to her: _dresser, wardrobe, vanity_.  The thing she thought of as a wardrobe was large enough that any number of things could have hidden behind it.

But, it was the large swathes of cloth hanging in spots on the wall that drew her attention.  They were like the cloth around the giant bed (and what, she wondered, had happened to all the people that bed must have been made for?  It was big enough for a small family.  What had happened to them, leaving this terrible emptiness behind?).

Belle got out of the bed.  She saw then she was dressed in something thin and flimsy.  This wasn’t the tight knits that went under her armor, thin mesh providing a little protection in case of attack.  This was loose, flowing cloth, ready to trip her up in a fight or be caught by teeth or claws.  Her feet were bare, open to wounds or cuts if something happened and debris covered the floor.

It terrified her, how defenseless she was, how vulnerable everything made her from the emptiness of the room to the garment she was wrapped in.  She remembered old tales.  _Meat in the larder, small beasts in their pens._

Belle made her away across the floor (the strange fabric made her think of the fur of some of the beasts roaming the Night.  Her feet sank deep as she hurried over them.

She pulled the cloth aside.  She’d meant to see what it hid.  Instead, she screamed, tumbling back, letting the cloth fall back into place as she tripped and fell.

Light.  Light so bright, it hurt, burning into her eyes.

Who’d ever heard of such a thing?  _Light_ made into a weapon, blinding her for daring to look at it.  Had she tumbled from the Night into an even worse, nightmare world?

“Belle?  Belle, what happened?  Are you all right?”

Rapid footsteps, the sound muffled by the thick cloths, as someone ran towards her.  Arms wrapped around her.  “Belle, what is it?  What’s wrong?”

“It burns,” Belle said between sobs.  “It burns.”

“What burns?  Did someone hurt you?  What happened?”

“Light,” Belle said.  She tried to gesture towards where she thought the cloth might be.  “It hurts.  I can’t even see.  How?  How can light hurt me?”

The arms around her relaxed.  “I should have realized.  You’re not used to the sun.” 

“The sun,” Belle repeated.  The sobs were fading, but she still gasped for breath.  “I saw the sun.  And the stars.  It didn’t hurt like this.”

“That was the moon,” the man said.  “The sun is brighter.  It can hurt even when you’re used to it if you look right at it.  You’ve been in darkness too long.  That’s all.”

“I can’t see.  I’m blinded.  How—?”

“It will fade,” the man assured her.  He ran a hand over her eyes.  “Give it a moment.  You should be able to see again soon.”

“The light—”

“You’ve been in darkness too long,” he said.  “But, your eyes will grow used to it. Give them time.”

The darkness gave way to purple spots that grew smaller and smaller till she could make out the room—the strange, nightmare room.  She looked at the man holding her—

—And jerked back in fear.  He was—he was—

A monster, an abhuman, one of the creatures that roamed the Night.  Too small to be an Ogre.  His skin was gray-green and scaled.  He let go of her as soon as she tried to get free of him, holding up his hands as he backed away.  They were empty, weaponless—except for his long, black claws.

Belle shouted the Word. 

“Henry!  Henry!  _Henry!_ ”

There was no power in it.  It echoed feebly from stones.

“Henry,” the creature repeated affably. 

“What—How—How can you say the Word?”

“The Word is a name,” the man said. “A very special name.  The name of the sleeping prince who maintains the Barrier.  You’re protected by him.  That’s why you can say it.  And I. . . .” he hesitated.  “We’re . . . kindred.  Of a sort.  That’s why I can say it.”

“It’s empty,” Belle said.  “There’s no power in it.  How?  What have you done?”  She thought of the warning she’d been given.  “The Barrier!  What’s happened to the Barrier?”

“It still stands.  And will continue to for . . . long enough.”

“Long enough?  Long enough for what?”

“To rescue them.  To bring them back to the sunlit world.”

Belle glanced uneasily at the blue and gold cloth on the wall, thinking of the terrible light behind it.  She’d always thought of Day as a safe, protected place, not painful and blinding.  “Isn’t there someplace else?”

He looked like she’d hit him in the face.  Then, he giggled.  It was a strange, inhuman sound.  “We’ll keep them safe here.  I promise, and—” with a theatrical twist of his hand, he pulled dark lenses set in a golden frame out of . . . somewhere and held them out to her.  “These will help in the meantime.”

His hand had five fingers, like a human’s.  But, each finger ended in a long, obsidian claw.  Belle didn’t reach for them.  “What—what are they?”

“Glasses.  The lenses are smoky quartz.  Let me show you—”  He unfolded metal hooks and stepped towards her.  Belle took a step back.

He stopped.  “I—I won’t touch you,” he said.  He held the glasses out to her.  “Take them.  The lenses go over your eyes.  You see?  And the hooks go over your ears—yes, like that—to hold them in place.  Are you ready?  I’ll open the curtains, now.  Tell me if it’s too bright.”

The room had grown dark—darker than the Night—the moment Belle had the lenses in place, but she cringed away from where the—what had he called it? Curtain?—should be.  There was a sound like fingers snapping, and then there was light.

Not painful light, the way it had been before.  This was gentle with a golden tinge.  Uncertainly, Belle made her way to the window and looked out. 

She didn’t know what she had expected to see.  It couldn’t be anything like the Night Land, not with so much light, but that was all she could knew for certain. 

The window, she realized, over looked the place full of flowers she had seen when she came here.  From here, she could see there were more flowers than she had ever imagined, ringed by circles of larger plants with little paths between them.  Not too far away, she saw something that sparkled and moved in the light.  She remembered strange bits and pieces from her dreams and from the ancient books.  “It’s a stream,” she said.  “Water flowing free.”

“Water does that,” the creature said.  He pointed to the distance.  Beyond the gardens, there were stone walls.  After that came more, large, strange plants.  But, beyond those, were hills—no, mountains.  But, unlike the mountains of the Night Land, which were dark shadows lit by cracks in the earth and strange lights, these were white and glistening.  “And, when it freezes, it does that.  There’s a great deal of water in this world.  No one worries if a little flows in streams.  They worry if it stops.”

Belle gaped.  It couldn’t be true, could it?  Mountains of water?  Dozens of peaks the size of the Pyramid, and each one covered in water?

“Do they ever stop?” she asked.

“Not since I came here,” he said.  He sounded smug, though Belle couldn’t imagine why.

She noticed the noises coming from outside.  “What are those sounds?  Like dozens of little flutes.  And that other one, like slipping through the pages of a book.”

“The flutes?  Those would be songbirds—small, flying creatures, pretty colors, many of them.”

“Songbirds?  So, they’re singing?  Why do they sing?”

“It lets other birds they’re there.  The young are telling their parents to come feed them.  The grown birds might be saying, ‘This nest is mine, go find your own.’  The ones that don’t have nests are telling anyone who comes by, ‘Listen to how beautifully I sing. Wouldn’t you like to come build a nest with me?’”

“And the rustling sound?”

“Leaves in the wind.”

“There was a sound when I came, _kree-kree._   Was that a bird?”

“Crickets.  They sing at night, for about the same reasons as birds.”

“Night?  What do you mean, Night?  The world was full of light!”

“That’s what we call it.  The stars, the moon, you see them at nighttime.  During daytime, you see the sun.”

Belle stared at him.  That was _Night_ in this world?  Light scattered across the sky like gems, and they called it _Night?_

“Some nights are darker,” he said apologetically.  “And you’ve seen how bright day is.  What else should we call them?”

“I don’t—I can’t—What is this place?  Who are you?  What am I doing here?”

He was silent for a long time.  Belle had given up on him answering when he asked, “Do you remember what I said to you last night?”

“Last night?”  The words confused her.  Night was a place, not a time.  But, that’s how he spoke of them.  Daytime.  And nighttime.  Like hours on a clock.

“When you came here.  You asked where you were.”

“You said. . . .”  She hesitated, thinking over his words as if they were a tray she was about to stumble into. “You said I was home.”

“This is the world you come from.  You.  Your people.  This is home.  Not the Night Land.  Here.”

A world of light.  A world where skies glittered like gems.  She gripped some of the cloth of the garment she was wearing.  “Why am I wearing this?  I can’t fight in it.  Why am I alone here?  What happened to the other people?”

“You don’t need to fight here,” the creature said.  “Not very often.  Monsters aren’t going to break into your bedroom.”

He tried to explain it to her, a world as different from everything she knew  as—as one full of light, as one where people walked outside without weapons in their hands or armor on their back.

“That’s insane.”

“Possibly.  But, it’s still safer than your world.”

“Nowhere’s that safe.”

He shrugged.  “Do you want to change?  There are clothes in the wardrobe that should fit you, things you could fight in, if that makes you feel better.”

“I want my armor.”

“You don’t need it.”

“I feel better in it.”

“Fine,” he pulled out a chest she hadn’t noticed before from the foot of the bed and opened it.  Her armor was inside. 

Belle reached out and grabbed her diskos.  It felt better just to have it in her hand.  But, when she tried to summon its light, nothing happened.

“What’s wrong?” She looked at the abhuman, eyes narrowing.  “What did you do to it?”

“Nothing!  It draws on the same power as your Barrier.  That’s in another world.  It can’t reach it here.”

“It can’t. . . .” Belle’s voice trailed off.  Her diskos was useless here, if what he said were true.  She was defenseless here, more vulnerable than she’d been trying to make her way across the Night.

“I can get you a sword,” the creature said.  “Or a mace.  A spear, would you like a spear?  You can have anything in the armory.  So, long as it’s not cursed.  Or poisoned.  You wouldn’t want the poisoned ones, either.”

 _Poison. . . ._   Belle checked her armor just as she always did before putting it on.  It was in good order.  Someone had cleaned it and fixed the scratches and dents.  But, the poison capsule was gone.

The creature saw what she was doing.  The look in his eyes reminded her of her mother and the fear Belle had seen in her face the first time she was attacked by a monster.  “You don’t need that,” he said.  “Not here.”

“Where is it?” Belle asked.

“Miss Swan— do you remember her from last night?  Blond woman.  Bad-tempered.  Didn’t trust you to be rational.  Don’t take it personally.  She’s like that with everyone.  But, she thought you’d be better off without it.”  He searched her face.  “Is she right?”

“I want to live.  But, creatures in the Night can only take your soul while it still belongs to this world.  The dead are safe from them.”

“Are they really?” the creature said.  He looked inclined to argue.  “Well, be a good girl, and I _might_ give you something to put there before we go.”

“Go?  Go where?”

“Back to the Night Land.  We’re going to get your people out of there.”


	24. Preparing for Battle

Rumplestiltskin was in his tower finishing the final stages of his plan.  He hadn’t explained all of it to Emma, of course.  She would, as always, argue with him; and he didn’t have the patience for it even he’d had the time.

He checked over his spell one more time.  Ones like this—the complicated ones—always needed to be fine-tailored to the particular use you were going to make of it, the rules and details carefully fitted, everything _exactly_ right.  It wasn’t like he’d be getting a second chance.

All the same, he made careful notes and wrote out his thoughts and reasoning.  He looked over the papers one more time.  It was a pity he couldn’t ask Miss Swan to check these over.  This would work, he was certain it would work, but it would be good to have someone else agree with him.

But, Miss Swan lacked centuries of magical experience.  Really, all she understood was point and blast.  An inevitable side effect of having Regina for a teacher, he supposed, and it wasn’t as if he had time to give lessons and bring her up to speed.  Subtle theory was beyond her. 

There was Zoso.  However, while Rumplestiltskin might trust him not to brand them with the Dark Mark and send them to the Underworld (or, rather, brand Miss Swan and send her to the Underworld.  Rumple, being a Dark One, was immune [or already lost, depending how you looked at it], and Belle was still linked in to that world. No use trading places with her).  Still, no reason to throw this much temptation at him.  Or hear his criticisms.

It was almost ready.  Just a couple of finishing touches, and they would be ready to go. 

He was thinking that he needed to find Belle, to explain as much as he could explain at this point.  Because, without her help, they had no chance at all.

There was a knock at his door.

X

A few hours earlier, Rumplestiltskin had been in Belle’s room, turning his back on her as she began to change.  “Why are you doing that?” she asked.  There was no innuendo or teasing in her voice, the way there would have been a few weeks ago, the sort of teasing that might have had him answering in kind, and then they might never have gotten out of the bedroom.  This was just innocent curiosity.

Of course, in the only world she remembered, people went armored at all times.  Removing the outer layer to sleep was something she only managed by being in a crowded room with heavily armed guards walking past the bunks—and, even then, she’d needed her weapon right by her bed. Vulnerability versus defense, that was how she looked at clothing.  She was as vulnerable in a nightgown as she was naked—more vulnerable if she didn’t remember how to move in something that went down to her ankles.

“It’s a custom of this world,” he said. “A man tries to give a woman privacy when she’s dressing.”  Or undressing.  Unless he’s 100% sure she wants him to see.

“Isn’t it dangerous?”

Not as dangerous as letting him look, not that he meant to explain _that_ to her.  He remembered how, after he and Belle had faced Emma and the bear she’d set after them in her cursed madness, they had fallen into each other’s arms, the first time he had ever made love to her as a weak, mortal man.  He had searched her face after, looking for signs of disappointment.  She had seen his fear and worry, and asked what was wrong with the same confused innocence she was asking now.

Whatever this latest curse had done to her, she was still Belle.

“I trust you not to stab me in the back,” he said.  If Belle detected any sarcasm, she chose not to mention it.

When she was done, Rumplestiltskin led her down to the great hall.  Breakfast was on the table, quite an extensive one.  Miss Swan had grabbed a muffin and set herself down in front of the mirror again.  Zoso fluttered in front of one of the tapestries, examining the art.  The curtains, in deference to Belle’s eyes, were tightly drawn, though hadn’t nailed them in place again.

Belle frowned at them.  “That looks . . . wrong,” she said.

Rumplestiltskin stopped, studying her carefully.  “Does it?”

Belle reached for the dark glasses he’d given her, making sure they were in place.  “Do you usually have them open?”

“Usually.  Would you like me to open them?”

“If it wouldn’t bother you.” 

“It’s no bother,” he assured her.  With a snap of his fingers, the curtains flung themselves open. “No bother at all.”

Emma looked away from the mirror long enough to roll her eyes.  Then, she got a look at Belle.  “Armor at breakfast?  What, getting attacked at the breakfast table was a problem for you two?” The words were already out of her mouth when Rumplestiltskin could see the more _colorful_ interpretations of what Miss Swan had just said catching up with her no-doubt exhausted brain.  She turned red.  “Uh—I mean—”

“I quite understand what you meant, Miss Swan,” Rumplestiltskin said. “You need to eat more.  It will help you think clearly.  Preferably, before you speak.”

“I don’t—”

“No, you don’t.  And I don’t want to have this argument for every meal.”  He pulled out a chair for Belle then sat down across from her.  She studied the table as if it were a puzzle she needed to decipher.  “Ah, let me explain,” Rumplestiltskin said. “You have a plate, glass, and utensil in front of you.  You may take any food from the plates and bowls on the table—any food that isn’t on my plate—and dish them up for yourself.  The pitchers have liquids you can pour into your glass.  Again, mine would be off limits to you.  If there’s anything you’d like you can’t reach from where you’re sitting, ask me to pass it to you.  If any of the utensils confuse you, ask and I’ll try to explain.”

Belle looked at everything in front of her in bewilderment.  “How can you have so much food?”

Rumplestiltskin shrugged.  “This world isn’t your world.” It was a simpler answer than explaining planting, harvest, and all the ins and outs of medieval food production.  “There are difficulties with producing food here, but not nearly the difficulties you’re used to.”  He waved a hand towards the window. “It can even grow wild out there, whether we want it to or not.”  And perhaps now wasn’t the time to explain about toadstools and poisonous plants.

Belle gaped at him.  Then, she decided to turn her attention to comprehensible mysteries and looked at the food in front of her.

Or perhaps not comprehensible mysteries.  “How do I eat it?” Belle asked.

Rumplestiltskin spent the rest of the meal explaining the greater mysteries of eating a muffin or how to peal an orange.  Boiled eggs took a great deal of explaining, although Belle decided she liked them once he’d convinced her they weren’t rocks.

The Storybrooke curse had changed some people more than others.  Animals had become men.  Dwarves had kept their strength but pointed ears had rounded, traits that would have shown people as nonhuman had been muted and changed.

Henry’s curse had changed Belle (and, he assumed, everyone else in the Pyramid).  Her eyes were the most obvious difference.  It wasn’t just what she was used to, these eyes were made to see in the dark.  He thought she could adjust to light, but had thought of a few ways to change them back if he turned out to be wrong.  Always fair-skinned, she now had the pasty paleness of someone who truly had never seen the sun.  There were other, more subtle changes.  Belle had always been hardy, not that most of the town had appreciated it.  She had endured the privations and hardships of the Ogre War and years of isolation and neglect in Regina’s prisons better than many a grizzled veteran.  But, under Henry’s cobbled-together magic, she would have had the strength to survive weeks of trekking through the Night that would have killed many of the heroes Rumplestiltskin had known.  Or she would if demons or monsters didn’t get to her first.

That’s what came of living in a world made by a child who enjoyed comic books.

“Gold,” Emma interrupted.  “You need to see this.”

There was fear in her voice.  _But, we got Belle out,_ Rumplestiltskin thought.  The others were safe for now, unless—

The Barrier still held.  He could see the light surrounding the Pyramid in the mirror.  No one else was coming out the gates into the Night on a would-be rescue mission or some other foolishness.  But, clustered around the outer gate—

“The Silent Ones,” Belle said.  “What are they doing?”

 _We should have had breakfast in a different room,_ Rumplestiltskin thought.  But, he and Emma had practically been living in this room once they were able to use the mirror to watch the Night Land.  It simply hadn’t occurred to him to keep away from it.

 _Tired,_ he thought, _I must be getting tired._

He didn’t need sleep.  But, trying to feed Emma power, watching over Belle, searching for the solution, it was all taking a toll on him.

_And if I’ve made other mistakes?_

He thought he knew how to set this right.  It wouldn’t have been his first choice—or his second or third—but it would work.  He _thought_ it would work.

If he was wrong. . . .

_I’m not.  This will bring everyone out.  Henry, his family, everyone Belle cares about, they’ll all be safe._

Well, almost everyone.  Close enough.

“What does it look like they’re doing?” Rumplestiltskin said wearily.  “They’re waiting for the Barrier to fall.”

“It’s failing?” Belle said. “I thought—that’s why I came here, to save them.  If they—”

“We have time,” Rumplestiltskin said.  He looked at Emma.  She was pale, cold sweat on her forehead, but she wasn’t at the end of her strength yet.  “Two, three days.  More than enough time.”

“Days?” Belle said.  “But, the Barrier’s held for millennia! It should have years left.  What happened?  What—Was it because of me?  What I did?”

“The Barrier isn’t what you think,” Gold said.  For a moment, he toyed with the thought of explaining magic and the curse before putting it aside.  _Keep it simple._   Well, simpler than telling her everything she understood about her world was wrong and expecting her to believe it.  He’s been down that road before with Miss Swan.  They didn’t have time to do that again.

“Humans aren’t native to the Night Land.  You have histories.  Do they say anything about how you got there?”

From the way Belle was staring at him, he might as well have told her the moon was made of green cheese.  No, given what she didn’t know about the moon, that might sound completely credible.  He might as well have told her _Jefferson_ was made of green cheese.

“It’s our world,” she protested.  “It’s always been our world.”

He’d hoped Henry would scatter a few hints of the truth.  Well, in for a penny.  He pressed on.  “But, what do the history books say about it?”

Belle still looked at him as if he were mad but she began to recite as if she were reading from a lesson book.  “The ages passed, and the sun began to die.  Darkness spread over the world.  We made strongholds to withdraw to, only traveling in heavily armed companies.  But, in the end, these were not enough.  The last of humanity gathered to make the Pyramid, protected by the Barrier.  Those who did not retreat to it in time perished, their fortresses falling one by one, till only we were left.”

“It’s not as wrong as it could be.  The sun didn’t die.” He waved towards the window. “You only have to look out there to see.  It was taken away; or, rather, you were. “

“We were?  How?”

Was she shocked? Skeptical? Convinced he was dangerously insane?  His plan relied on her trusting him, at least a little, enough to do what needed to be done.

“Someone opened a doorway between our worlds.  It was closed, but. . . .”  He looked at Miss Swan, who was not looking back.  _Do not antagonize your allies,_ he reminded himself.  “. . . mistakes were made.”

“Mistakes,” Belle repeated.  “What happened to us—to everyone I know—was a _mistake?_ ”

Emma winced.  Rumplestiltskin pretended not to notice.  “A very bad one.  And the parties that made it will _not_ be in a position to repeat their error.”  He shot Emma a look, _Will they, Miss Swan?_   “Fortunately, one of the people swept up in it had unique gifts.  Your sleeping prince.  He draws on some of the powers of this world.”

“The Barrier’s stood for ages out of mind.  How can that be possible?”

“Because time doesn’t always move at the same pace between worlds.  Besides, what happened froze him in time.” It had only been weeks but, all the same, this spell froze them in time as thoroughly as Regina’s curse had.  Miss Swan might not see the changes (or lack of them) in Belle but, to someone who knew what to look for, the signs were obvious.

And not worth discussing at this point when they would only confuse matters.  Explaining what had happened to Henry was hard enough.

“Your prince hasn’t changed.  But, he’s weakening.  Time is catching up to him.  It began before Jefferson made his trek to contact me.  The process is accelerating.  But, we have time.  That’s what you need to remember.  We have time.”

“How much time?”

“Enough.  There are still preparations that need to be made.  But, if all goes well, we’ll return this evening.”

“Evening?”

“Ah, forgive me.  It’s a word from this world.  Ten or twelve hours from now, would be my guess.  I have some things to prepare.  Then, if all goes well, we’ll open the door and let your people through.”

“And if it doesn’t go well?”

“Don’t worry.  We conquer or we perish.”  He tried to give her a reassuring smile.  “Nothing worse.” Not for Belle, _probably_ nothing worse for Miss Swan.  As for the rest, it depended on how quick they were.  “I promise.  I can get you another poison pill to take with you if you’re worried.” _But, I don’t promise to hand it over before we go._

X

Rumplestiltskin opened the door with a wave of his hand.  Belle, standing on the other side, looked unnerved.  Perhaps he should have opened it himself.  He needed her trust—just a little of it—for this to work.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Emma wanted me to check on you.”

“Afraid to come herself?”

Belle smiled.  He knew that smile, witty, intelligent, aware of all the irony in everyday life.  “I think so.”  She looked around the room.  “This is your workroom?”  Her eyes settled on the large cauldron with its glowing steam.  “What are you doing?”

“Magic.”

“There’s no such thing as magic.”

“Then I must be doing very strange science.  Would you like to see?”

“How dangerous is it if I say yes?”

“See?  You _do_ understand the rules.  This isn’t dangerous at all.  Just give me a hair from your head.”

“A hair from my head?  What do you want with that?”

“Give it to me and you’ll see.”

Belle considered the deal, thinking over the risks.  Then, she wrapped a finger around a single, thin curl and pulled it loose, handing it to him.

His heart glowed.  She’d decided to trust him.  Or she just didn’t understand what a clever mage could do with a single hair.

Never mind.  Trust wasn’t the issue, not now.  He put the hair into the crystal vial he’d prepared.  It twined around the other hair waiting for it inside the glass and held his breath, waiting.

It began to glow.

 _It’s enough,_ he thought.  _We can do this.  We can win._

“What is that?” Belle asked.

“Something precious,” Rumplestiltskin told her.  “The last piece we needed.”  He smiled at her.  “With this, we can save them all.”


	25. At the Threshold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They prepare to return to the Night Land. Rumple is still not explaining his plan.

Miss Swan had had several, sarcastic things to say when Rumplestiltskin gave her a suit of leather.  “It’s armor and you can wear your leather jacket over it,” he told her, cutting her off.  “I thought you might like that.”

Normal leather armor wasn’t as heavy as plate or chainmail but was still bulky enough.  This suit was no thicker than Miss Swan’s usual jeans and t-shirts and just as easy to move in.  If time weren’t important and if he thought she’d care, he might have explained the effort and work that had gone into making it, but he supposed it didn’t matter now.  He just concentrated on essentials. 

“It’s stronger than steel,” he explained. “And can hold off dark magic.  For a while.  Do _try_ to avoid being hit.”

“It has _scales_.”

“It’s from a dragon. It will keep you safe.”

“Like it kept the dragon safe?”

“Safer, then.  Safer than anything else I can give you.”

He handed out weapons next.  Belle had her diskos.  Zoso hovered insubstantially. But, the savior or Storybrooke was another story.  “Miss Swan, you’ll want your father’s sword.”

Emma scowled.  “Like I know how to use it.” Despite occasional attempts at learning, her swordsmanship was still spotty.

“Then give it to your father when you find him.  And take this for your mother.”  He handed her a bow and a quiver full of arrows, arrows he’d made.  They had a few surprises built into them.

“I’d prefer a gun.”

He nodded.  “I have yours here.”  He handed her the weapon.

“That’s not—Gold, what did you do to my gun?”

“Plated it with gold.  And other things that will protect it. For a while.”  He handed her a couple clips of ammo.  “I made these for you, too.”

Emma looked at the bullets.  “You’re really into sparkly, aren’t you?”

He shrugged.  “They’re gold and silver.  Silver because it’s the best metal to use against the things there.  Gold because the gold I’ve spun holds the spells I’ve woven into them.”

“Isn’t that mixing dark and light?  I thought that kind of magic had problems.”

“If you mean, will the magic holding them together fall apart, yes, it will.  But, it will take time.  Either way, it won’t matter.”  Either way.  They would get everyone out, or it wouldn’t matter how many bullets they had.  “The propellant isn’t anything you’re used to.  There’s no gunpowder inside them, just fire.  And light.  Harder for our friends over there to interfere with.”

He chose two swords for himself, not that he expected to use them.  But, Miss Swan’s father wasn’t the only swordsman in that world.  Instead of armor, he wore the same black leather he’d worn in Neverland and for much the same reasons.  Last of all, he gathered up three black velvet bags, placing them in his satchel.

“Do I want to know?” Miss Swan asked.

“I’ll show you when the time comes.” 

For once, she didn’t argue.  Rumplestiltskin went to his cauldron.  It still steamed and boiled, only needing one more ingredient to make it whole.  He put his hands on opposite ends of the rim as if he were about to pick it up.  _A different form,_ he told it silently.  _Something more portable._

Belle gasped, which didn’t surprise him.  So did Miss Swan, who should be used to these things by now.  Zoso might have yawned.  It was hard to tell.  Instead of a cauldron, he held the two ends of a scroll.  Because, really, what else was a spell, when all was said and done?

He looked it over one last time, making sure of everything he’d done.  It was all there, from locks of hair to drop of true love to bind it all together. Satisfied, he rolled it up and tucked it away inside his suit.

He went over to his worktable.  A map he’d made of the Night Land, with some advice from Belle and Zoso, was spread over it.

“Listen,” he told them. “We’ll need to stick close together till we get inside the pyramid.  If I’ve calculated correctly, we should come out here, just behind where the Silent Ones are gathered.”

“That’s the Shadow Watcher’s pit,” Belle said.  “No one’s ever survived going there.”

Would she believe him if he reminded her that all her people’s records were lies?  None of them had ever been there.  He decided to stick to essentials.  “It’s a boundary point—like the town line,” he added to Miss Swan.

“Town line?” Belle asked.

“Storybrooke,” Miss Swan said. “It’s a—it _was_ a cursed town.  Bad things happened to people who tried to leave.”

“Wait,” Belle said. “A boundary, you’re saying I could have gotten out of the Night Land _there?_ ”  She sounded outraged.  “Everything I did, taking the Silent Ones’ road, nearly getting killed, that was for nothing?”

“It’s not that kind of boundary,” Rumplestiltskin said. “Think of it as a reflection.  It mirrored something happening in this world.  But, if you’d tried to go out that way, bad things would have happened.”  There was a longer, more technical explanation, involving the nature of the Dark Ones’ power, the Underworld, and a few other things.  He wanted to explain it all to Belle, to see her reactions as she followed the peculiar logic of magic the way so few did.

No time.

“It’s a point we can enter at,” was all he said. “We just can’t leave that way.”

“But, the Watcher, won’t it try to kill us?”

“Belle, _we’re_ the Watchers.  Miss Swan and I have been watching your world from the beginning.”  He pointed again to the map.  “We’ll come out behind the Silent Ones.  Hopefully, we’ll have surprise on our side, but it won’t last long.  Emma, the Dark Ones will realize you have light magic.  I don’t know if they’ll realize it’s the same magic protecting the pyramid.  If they don’t realize that, they’ll probably want to stay away from you.  If they do, they’ll know, if they kill you, the pyramid’s defenseless.  So, don’t give them the chance.  I’ll do my best to stay between you and them. I also have some distractions ready that should keep them busy. No matter what happens, remember, you need do whatever you have to to protect yourself—no matter _who_ tries to stop you.  You’re what’s keeping the pyramid alive.  Clear?”

Miss Swan nodded briefly.  “Clear.”

“Belle, you don’t have any magic of your own.  Stay between me and Emma.”  He glanced at the shadow hovering near them.  “Zoso has promised to help, but there’s only so much he can do against all of them.  We need you to get into the pyramid, so don’t put yourself in danger.

“We’ll make a straight line for the gate.  Once we’re in, we need to summon everyone to the Tomb of the Sleeping Prince.  Can you do this?”

“Not me,” Belle said.  “We learn the evacuation codes as children.  The final rally tells everyone to go to the lowest level, but not just anyone can do it.”

“But, the Master Monstruwacan and the Seven can send the signal, correct?  You need to tell them to do it.”

“And if they don’t listen to me?”

“We’ll be very convincing.”

“I’ll be bringing strangers in from the Night.”

“We’re there to help them.  We can say the Word.  That should be enough.  Miss Swan controls the barrier.  It won’t keep us out.”

“The barrier’s not what I’m worried about.”

Miss Swan spoke up.  “She’s talking about the scales.  You need to change your look, Gold.”

Rumplestiltskin looked down at his clawed hand.  “Ah, yes.”  A moment’s thought, that’s all it took.  But, it was something he’d always avoided in the Enchanted Forest.  A kind of honesty.  When people made a deal with him, they should know what they were dealing with.

He looked at Belle.  She was surprised and . . . afraid?  He wasn’t sure.  It might only be that that was what he was expecting to see in her eyes.

“How—how did you do that?”

“It’s the face I was born with.  I usually do without it.  No great loss.”

He though he saw a spark of anger in her eyes, the old Belle rising, ready to argue whenever he called himself a monster.  But, she didn’t say it, not now.  She knew it, too.  They had no time.

He wanted time, time to bring back her memories, to talk with her, to say he was sorry—for failing her, for letting this happen, for everything.  Time to be with her while there still _was_ time.

He’d seen the tremor in Emma’s hands.  A day, maybe two, that was all they had left.  And she would be growing weaker every moment of it.  Her magic wouldn’t matter if she couldn’t even crawl to the pyramid.

And Belle, once she had her memory back would remember what a twisted, conniving mind he had.  She would want to know the whole plan, the parts he hadn’t told Miss Swan.  Then, she’d argue, telling him he was making the wrong choice.

Maybe he was.  Maybe, the moment she knew the whole of it, she’d see a better way. 

Or maybe they’d just lose the time they had left, the time they didn’t have to waste, trying to come up with something better.

_I’m sorry, sweetheart._

Rumplestiltskin gestured to his face.  “Will it do?” he asked.

She gave a quick nod, cutting off all the other things she might have said.  “If we can get to the gate, if they aren’t too afraid, yes, it should get us in.”

“Then, let’s go.”


	26. A Little Light

The message came down from the Monstruwacans’ lair at the top of the Pyramid: _Newcomers from the Shadow Watcher’s pit._

Leroy was in the watch room over the gate.  He’d been watching the Silent Ones for hours.  So far, they only stood there, waiting.  He turned his telescope, expecting to see more of them or some of the other monsters from the Night .  Instead, he saw three figures, ones that looked human enough, for whatever that was worth.  He thought one was an Abhuman at first.  It was covered in scales.  But, getting a better look, he wasn’t so sure.  The scales looked like they were part of clothing, maybe armor, though it wasn’t anything he’d seen a human use.  Beside that one was another, a man in black.  He didn’t have a helmet and, whatever it was he was wearing, it didn’t look like it would hold off a pocketknife.  Only the third figure looked normal, wearing the same armor Leroy and everyone else in the Pyramid used.

Belle?

It was still a black mark on the Seven’s record that she’d been able to get past them (though Leroy had to grudgingly admire her for pulling it off).  There wasn’t anyone else—not anyone human—who could be out there.

But, in that case, who were the other two? 

There were records of people who’d gone out into the Night, people who hadn’t grabbed their poison capsule in time.  Leroy had heard of revenants, dead bodies stumbling up to the gates, and worse, bodies with _things_ inside them. 

“Incoming!” he told his brothers.  “Three humanoids, two unknown.  One looks like ours.  Could be turned.”

 _Could be turned._   They all knew what that meant.  Something that looked human but wasn’t, not anymore—or maybe it still was but still working for _them._

“Belle?” Doc asked.  He doubled as the medic of their group.  When they had skirmishes at the gates, if that’s what you wanted to call fighting a monster that wanted to pluck off your arms and legs once by one to add to its own hide.  He was already reaching for his field kit.

“ _Turned,_ ” Leroy said.  “If she were still one of us, she wouldn’t be bringing strangers here.  Get your diskos.  You won’t be needing your medical kit.”

Doc didn’t look happy, not remotely.  But, he left the field kit where it was.

The Silent Ones had clustered around the gate.  They didn’t press up against it, looking for weakness, trying to fight their way through.  Instead, they stood back, waiting.  Leroy almost wished they would attack.  It would be better than what they were doing.  They were so calm, so _certain_.

The trio continued across the Night, moving towards the Silent Ones.  Did they have some kind of plan?  Or were they just that stupid? 

Or were they with the Silent Ones?

They were only a few yards away when a Silent Ones, one standing right outside the gate, stirred as if it had heard something.  It turned. 

The Silent Ones were well-named.  It didn’t make a sound.  Yet, Leroy felt something, a tensing in his bones as if a high-pitched scream shot through the Night.  He could feel it even if he couldn’t hear it.  The other Silent Ones turned.  If they had had voices, Leroy was sure they would have been adding their screams to the first’s.  The tension he’d felt grew into a sharp pain.  Then, the Silent Ones moved as one, speeding towards the travelers.

The man in black grinned.  He pulled out a small sack, black as the sky above, and reached into it.  Leroy tried to see what the man was pulling out, what could possibly help against an army of Silent Ones.

The world exploded into light, more light than Leroy had ever imagined.  He cried out as it seared his eyes, closing them and raising an arm to protect them as he turned away.  But, still, he could see the light.  It burned through everything he did to block it, blinding him.

X

They were walking across the Night Land towards the largest gathering of Silent Ones Belle had ever seen, larger even than the horde she had faced on the road.  And she was walking _towards_ them.

“The closer we can get, the better,” Rumplestiltskin had told them before they left.  It had seemed to make sense then.  It still did, unfortunately.  Walking directly towards the worst demons in this world  was their best option.

Close.  How close was close enough?

“I have something that may hold them back.  For a while,” Rumplestiltskin had said.

“ _May?_ ” Emma shot back, so Belle didn’t have to.

“I’m reasonably certain.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Then, we fight.  I thought that part was obvious.”

They had gotten closer than Belle ever expected before one of the Silent Ones turned and saw them.  No, not them.  It was staring right at Emma.  Emma froze, going pale.  It wasn’t fear.  Belle felt a pressure building in the air.  The Silent One was angry, and its anger was focused on Emma.

The others turned. Whatever the first was doing, they joined it.  Emma staggered.  Zoso, fluttering in her shadow, still unseen by the Pyramid, seemed to reach out to her, as if he were trying to help her stay up.  Could he do that?  Or would Emma fall through him?  Belle assumed he wasn’t going to kill her the way had the crabs.

And Rumplestiltskin chuckled, pulling out one of his velvet bags.  “Duck, Zoso,” he said as light exploded all around them.

Even with her lenses, Belle was blinded.  She felt Rumple’s hand close around hers.  “Come on!” 

He pulled her into a run.  Sightlessly, Belle followed after him.  She felt—she _thought_ she felt Emma running along beside her.

She was running blind in the Night Land, she had no idea what might be next to her.   Belle chanted the Word, like a frightened child.  It didn’t sound the way it did in the daylight world, thin and weak.  Here, in the Night, she could feel the power of it rolling of her tongue.

 Belle felt it as they crossed the Barrier.  “Stop, that’s far enough!” Rumplestiltskin said as she and Emma nearly crashed into the gate.

The light vanished.  For a moment, everything seemed pitch dark.  Her sight began to come back, but purple spots hovered in her eyes.  Looking back at the Silent Ones, it took Belle a moment to be sure some of the shadows darting back and forth were the Silent Ones.  They seemed confused, even panicked.

Rumplestiltskin watched them with satisfaction.  It should frighten her.  She was standing next to a creature even Silent Ones were afraid of.  Instead, it gave her a feeling of warmth and safety she hadn’t had since her mother passed away.

The only power he had over Emma, however, was irritation.  “What was that?” she demanded.

“A little daylight,” Rumplestiltskin said innocently. “What did it look like?”

“ _You_ don’t get chased off by a little sunshine. Neither did Zobo. Your windows didn’t scare him.”

“Zoso, Miss Swan. Windows or not, he kept to the shadows.  I’m alive.  They aren’t.  That has its disadvantages.  And what I threw at them was a bit more concentrated than you’re used to.”

Belle let them argue.  She had more important things to do.  Stumbling towards the gate (her eyes were mostly back to normal and, anyway, it was hard to miss at this distance), she went up and pounded on it, shouting the Word.  “Can you hear me?  I’m human and uncorrupted.  Let us in!” 

The gate stayed closed.

Belle ground her teeth.  After everything she’d been through, she was not going to be stopped because some fool of a guard didn’t trust her.  “We passed the Barrier.  We can say the Word.  What more do you want?  Let us in!”

“What if they don’t open up?” Emma said.

“There are other ways,” Rumplestiltskin said.  He gave the gate a calculating look.  “How upset do you think they’ll be if I tear it down?”

“That’s not funny,” Belle said.  “We need them to gather the people. They won’t do that if they don’t trust us.  And you can’t open up the Pyramid to the Night.  We need the gate.”

“Trust.  I’ve always had a problem inspiring that.  I can’t imagine why.  But, perhaps Miss Swan could use her skills of persuasion and. . . . Miss Swan?  Emma?  Emma!”

Emma was looking pale.  She swayed slightly, stumbling, taking a half-step towards the Barrier.  “Gold?”

“Emma, what’s wrong?  What are you doing?”  He grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her back.

Emma didn’t fight him, but Belle thought it was because she didn’t have the strength.  Her attention was fixed on them. 

Enraptured, Belle thought.  Bespelled.

“I—I can hear them,” Emma whispered.

The Silent Ones were regathering, drifting closer, their glowing eyes fixed on her.

“I can hear _him._ ”

“Don’t,” Rumplestiltskin said, not letting go of her.  “Don’t listen to him, Emma.  _Don’t._ ”

Belle began to pound on the gate again.  “Leroy!  Doc!  Whoever’s in charge!  Let us in, do you hear me?  Let us in!”

“He—he says it was wrong,” Emma said.  “What happened.  It was my fault.  He’s right.  He shouldn’t have died.  I should have found a way—I should have let him—”

“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“No.  I should have saved him.  There had to be a way.”

“Don’t listen to him, Emma.  Think of Henry.  They’ll kill him if they get in the Pyramid, if you let the Barrier down.  They’ll kill your family and everyone you love.  You’re the only one who can stop them.”

“Henry?’ Emma said.  “He wouldn’t. . . .  He. . . .”

 “He would,” Rumplestiltskin said.  “It wouldn’t be the first child he sold out.  You’ve met the Lost Boys, heard their tales.  Think of Henry.  He was the reason you came to Storybrooke.  You broke the curse to save him.  You took on dragons and evil queens for him.  Remember that.  Remember him.”

It was strange.  When Rumplestiltskin and Emma said the Word, Belle could feel the power in it now they were back in her world.  But, she could also tell it was a name when they said it, the name of a real person that both of them cared deeply for.

 “Henry,” Emma whispered.  Belle heard the resolve in her voice.  Shaking off whatever spell had been cast on her,  she turned to the gate.  Her eyes burned.  “Hey, you in there!  My son, Henry’s inside.  You know that name?  _Henry!_   Get off your rear ends and let us in before I break this place wide open!”

There was nothing.  Then, with the slow growl of giant hinges, the gate opened just a crack, just enough to let them slip through.


	27. Jefferson Tells a Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grace learns some of the truth about the Pyramid and Rumplestiltskin.

Papa found Grace in the dormitory, where she’d gone to stay there when he made his journey into the Night. 

“I have to go,” he’d told her before he left. “If I’m right, there’s something out there that can save us all.”

“Save us?” Grace said.  The Pyramid had stood for ages.  Small dangers broke through, now and then, but they were weak and easy to get rid of.  That’s what everyone said.  That there had been a time, not long ago, when people didn’t wear armor all the time, when people thought it was safe to sleep alone in a room didn’t mean anything.  That’s what they always said, and Grace didn’t want to even think what it meant if they were wrong.  No one did.  “What do we need to be saved from?”

“To make us safer, then,” Papa said.  “I have to do this, Grace. I’m sorry.”

And he went into the Night.

 It took too little time for him to be out of sight of the Pyramid.  After that, there was nothing to do but wait, hoping that—somehow—he would come back.  Grace had spent time in the Archives, reading what she could on those who had gone before Papa.  Archivist Belle tried to steer her towards stories by ones who returned; but Grace found plenty of others, story after story of men who had braved the Night and been swallowed up by it.

Then, Papa returned.

He was hurt very badly.  The healers wouldn’t let her in to see him, not till they said he was ready.  Grace had tried not to cry when she saw him—though, she still didn’t know _why_ she’d wanted to cry.  Was it because Papa looked so sick and awful?  Or was it because he had come back and was alive?

When he came to get her in the dormitory, people were already talking about the Silent Ones.  They were standing at the gate, waiting.  Grace didn’t have to ask for what.  The Barrier had already flickered once.

Papa had two survival packs, like the one he had carried with him when he left.  For a moment, Grace was afraid he wanted both of them to go out into the Night, to somehow fight their way past the Silent Ones.

What he said instead was, “We’re going down to the lower levels.  Where it’s safer.”

Safer.  What made any of the levels safer?  If the Barrier fell (but it couldn’t fall, Grace told herself, repeating what everyone else had said.  The flicker was just that, a flicker.  Something that could happen once or twice in all the eons the Barrier had stood.  It _couldn’t_ happen again), where was there left to hide?

But, she picked up the pack Papa offered her and followed him and gathered a few of the things she’d brought to the dormitory.  As they went, Papa began to tell her a story, the way he used to when she was little. 

“Once upon a time,” he began, “When there was a sun in the sky, and stars and moon, people walked in the open air.  Instead of monsters, their wild places were home to small, mortal beasts, animals you could fight off with a stick or a well thrown rock.  Birds, flying creatures, some of them so small you could fit them in the palm of your hand, weren’t afraid to let the whole world know they were there.  They sang all the day long in voices like tiny flutes.  They were the colors of flowers, rose red for the robin.  Jays were lapis and ice.  Hummingbirds glittered like jewels.  Even pigeons, a bird everyone one said was plain and common, were the soft gray of sleep.  The color matched their voices, a soft coo that would lull you into rest. People built homes that were open to the world so they could hear birdsong and all the voices of the wind.

“Then, one day, darkness came.” For a moment, Papa looked like a child seeing a monster for the first time: afraid and not understanding what was happening.  “It tried to eat up the world; and the world fell apart like knitting when you pull the thread, unraveling.  Some simple, innocent mistake destroyed everything.”

“What mistake, Papa?” Grace asked.

“I don’t know,” Papa said with that same confused, empty look.  “Someone opened a door and let the darkness in, but that wasn’t enough to destroy everything.  I think they were trying to get rid of them, to make them go away.  Instead, the world fell apart.  Darkness was everywhere.  Only the Pyramid was left to keep us safe.

“But, there are stories,” he said, his voice becoming firmer.  “There is another fortress.  It lies at the other end of the world or somewhere beyond it.  There is a man there.  He knows more of Night than any Monstruwacan.”

The other fortress, the lesser Pyramid.  Grace had heard stories.  Most people said it had fallen and vanished into the Night.  Grace tried not to remember that as she listened to Papa’s tale.  “More than you, Papa?”

“Infinitely more.  And he knows more of Day than any Archivist.  Because, you see, he is very old—older than the Pyramid itself, older than the coming of the darkness.  He was there when the door was opened, even if he couldn’t stop it.  He has worked all this time to find his way back to us, to defeat the Night and bring back the Day.”

Defeat the Night and bring back Day.  If one of the girls in the dormitory told her this, Grace would despise her for believing in nursery tales.  Now, she wanted more than anything for Papa’s story to be true.  “Can he do it, Papa?”

“If anyone can, he can.”

“But, would he?” Grace asked. “When you left the Pyramid, people said we couldn’t help you.  If you were hurt, if you were dying, we couldn’t do anything.  Why would he be different?  _How_ could he be different and leave his Pyramid to help us?”

“Because, he would do anything— _anything_ to help the people he loves.  There were never many of them, but there are—I mean, the story is there are some in our Pyramid.  One.  Or two.  His wife and grandchild. He would break worlds apart to find them.

“And he always keeps his deals.  He made a promise.  He won’t leave us alone in the Night, not if he could help it.”

 _If he could help it._ Grace bit her tongue.  Papa had gone out into the Night and he had come back.  Maybe someone else could, too.

They were nearing the level of the Gate.  Windows became fewer further down (no one liked to look eye to eye with things in the Night) but they were passing one when Papa froze, staring at what he saw.  Grace looked out to see what it was.  Three figures hurried across the Night towards the Pyramid, towards the Silent Ones.

“It’s him,” Papa whispered.  “It’s _him._ ”


	28. From the Inside

The light was dim in the stone-lined room but not so dim Emma couldn’t see all the weapons aimed at her as the door thudded shut behind them.  Knowing the people aiming them at her didn’t help, since none of them knew her.

Belle didn’t have that problem.  She took off her helmet so they could see her and said Henry’s name.  It didn’t sound like name when she said it here, though Emma still recognized it.  It wasn’t a sound at all, not really.  It was a feeling, a sense of light, the way she felt when her super-power told her she was hearing hard, strong truths.

The guards didn’t say anything at first.  Belle glared at them, waiting.  One by one, they all murmured the name.  Then, Belle looked at Emma and Gold.

“Henry,” Emma said.

“Henry,” Gold repeated.  There was something in his eyes when he said it.  Emma, who knew what it had been like to have dark and light magic churning inside her when she used the two together (insane, that’s what it had been, worse than the voices of the curse gibbering in her head), recognized the way he quietly steeled himself before the Word burnt across his tongue.

 _It’s my grandson’s name,_ he told them.  _Of course, I can say it._ Emma wondered if he was telling himself the same thing now as he forced it out. 

 _He’s the most powerful Dark One ever,_ she reminded herself.  _And he’s used light magic before when he had to._ And, maybe, when it came to magic, good intentions really did count for something, because no one else noticed any hesitation. 

Leroy gave a noncommittal grunt.  Belle turned on him.  “Isn’t that good enough for you?”

“Not even close.  You can say the Word and you got past the Barrier.  But, you’re not from here.  You’re not even human.  So, what are you?”

Gold looked amused and maybe he was. Leroy wasn’t a snail yet.  “Why shouldn’t I be human?”

“You’re from the Night,” Leroy growled. “So, what are you?”

“You’re mistaken,” Gold said. “I’m as human as you are.”

Emma half-expected Belle to challenge Gold on that one.  She’d seen him with his scales, after all.  Instead, Leroy was the one she gave a sharp look, like she was checking him for claws or scales.  Emma could have told her Leroy was a Dwarf who’d hatched out of a giant egg but decided against it.  Maybe later.

“You can say the Word,” Leroy said. “And you did something to the Silent Ones.  That’s the reason we let you in. But, you’re not getting any further till we have some answers.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Emma said. “Gold, we need to get in and find Henry.  After that, you can do whatever it is you do and get us home.”

“Listen, lady,” Leroy said. “You’re not going anywhere or finding anyone till I say you do.”

“Oh, yeah?” Her father said her mother was the diplomat in the family.  How had she made friends with the Dwarves?  Oh, right, by helping them escape George’s castle.  She hadn’t needed to make friends with them before they’d even let her help them escape—and she definitely hadn’t had to sell them on the idea of escaping in the first place.  These guys would happily stay right where they were till the world ended.

Emma tried to think of some _not_ -diplomatic way of getting them to work with her.  Scraps of memory from her time as Dark One came floating up.  There were a _lot_ of things she could do. . . .

Emma doubled over, screaming.  It felt like fish hooks and metal knives inside her guts, trying to fight their way out.  From higher up, she heard what sounded like Tom Clark shouting, “Captain!  The Silent Ones are moving in!  The Barrier, they’re doing something to the Barrier!”

Hands grabbed her by the shoulders.  “Miss Swan?  You have to fight them off.  Do you hear me?  You have to keep up the Barrier.”

A warm feeling spread where he touched her.  At the same time, it made her sick.  She wanted to throw back everything he was giving her.  Power, strength, enough to keep her going, enough to keep the Barrier from breaking, to keep the Pyramid alive a little longer.

Somewhere, Henry was in this world.  He needed her magic to protect this place.  And she needed Gold’s magic to make sure that happened.  She tried to open herself, to let it through and pass it on.  But, taking it in, she could feel the other Dark Ones, like hungry rats watching in the night, just beyond the edge of the firelight.

“You see them,” Gold said.

Emma nodded, still trying to find the strength to speak.  “They—they can feel me.”

“Yes.”

“They?” Leroy said. “The Silent Ones?”  He shifted his grip on his weapon, the thing that looked like a cross between a spear and a lightsaber, like he was getting ready to ram it through her.  “Right, I don’t know what you’re up to, but you’re not doing it here.”

Gold spoke mildly.  “We’re trying to help you, to keep the Barrier up.”

“That’s not what it sounds like.” Leroy altered his stance, starting to throw.  Through the corner of her eyes, Emma saw the other guards following his lead. 

“You don’t want to do that,” Gold said, still mild.

Gold had a plan.  Gold always had a plan.  But, Emma didn’t have time for it, not anymore.  Something dark and angry boiled over inside of her and reached out before the diskos could leave Leroy’s hands.  A small bird, yellow and startled, appeared in his place.  It plummeted halfway to the floor before remembering it had wings and spreading them out.  It fluttered awkwardly, righted itself, and lurched unevenly around the room.  So, did all the other guards-turned-birds.

Emma could feel the Silent Ones’ rat eyes boring into her.  She saw the wave of darkness rising from them.

Gold’s grip tightened on her.  Another sick-warm wave of power hit her.  “No, Miss Swan.  Ignore them.  Push them back.  Whatever you do, _don’t listen to them._ ”

“I’m not.”

“Really?  And when did you learn that curse?”

“I—” Emma stopped.  Transformation.  When had she learned anything about that?  _It’s harder than it looks,_ that’s what Gold had told her when she’d seen one of his spell books.  _Start with something that doesn’t matter.  Say, an apple.  But, don’t feed it to anyone you mean to keep around._

She’d never learned.  But, the knowledge had been there.  “How. . . ?”

“They can still sense you,” Gold said. “When they attacked the Barrier, you were listening to them, weren’t you?”

“I—I was angry.”  She looked at the angry birds darting around them.  “I wanted to hurt them.”

He nodded. “They’ll try to use that, to get inside you.  Don’t let them.”

“What about you?”

“I’m used to ignoring them, not that it matters.  I’m not keeping up a Barrier.”

Belle wasn’t handling it too well.  She was staring at them, eyes wide and horrified.  “What did you do?”

“Kept them from killing us,” Gold said.  He pulled some gold thread out of somewhere (a hidden pocket or thin air, either was possible, knowing him) and twisted it much more quickly than should be possible into a large cage.  Emma couldn’t quite follow what he’d done, but she thought several of the threads had moved around on their own.  He gave a little whistle, and the birds flew in, settling on the perches scattered within it.

“Change them back!”

Gold’s eyes were warm and sad as he looked at Belle.  Emma knew very well there was practically nothing his wife could ask him for that he wouldn’t deliver, and prepared herself for dealing with a bunch of _really_ angry ex-birds.

But, Gold shook his head.  “I can’t, sweetheart.  Emma’s spells are a tangle of light and dark these days, and we don’t have time for me to untie them.  Even if we did, I’m not going to stand around arguing with Leroy while the lives of everyone in the Pyramid are in the balance.  They won’t come to harm and they’ll be restored when this is done.  You have my word.”

Belle didn’t look happy but she accepted it.  Emma wondered how long that would last.  She’d seen what happened before when Belle was pushed too far.  How mad would Gold get if Emma turned Belle into a bird?

Only problem (besides Gold turning _her_ into something) was that tapping into that might bring down the Barrier and kill everyone.  She had to remember that.  If she moved people out of the way when she was trying to save their lives, they might all wind up dead anyway.  Great.

“There are other guards outside the entry,” Belle said.  “What are you going to do to them?”

“Try to reason with them,” Gold said.  He didn’t sound hopeful.  “Miss Swan, please, _try_ to let me deal with them.”

“Their main job is to keep anyone from the Pyramid getting into this area,” Belle said.  “But, they back up the Seven.  They should be able to monitor what’s happening here.  They’ll know what you’ve done.”

 _If that’s so, why haven’t they tried to kill us?_ Emma wondered, reaching for her gun.  _And what are you going to do, Emma, if Ruby’s on guard?  Or your mom or dad?_  She tried to think of alternatives to shooting, magic she could do that might do something useful and wouldn’t kill anyone.  It was a pretty short list _._

That was when the gate inside opened.  It slid up, like a portcullis or whatever you called it.  Or like something from Star Trek (Emma was going to have a long talk with Henry when this was over).  Gold put the bird cage down by Belle and stood between them and the opening.

Jefferson came rushing in.  Or hobbling quickly.  The guy looked a mess.  “Rumplestiltskin!”

Belle stared (Emma felt sorry for her.  The librarian’s day just kept getting weirder and weirder).  “You know him?”

Gold answered for him.  “It’s Jefferson’s curse, to always remember.”  He turned to Jefferson.  “What’s happening on the other side? Are we going to have to fight our way through?”

“No, I gave them tea.”

“Good.”

“Good?” Belle said.  “How is that good?  We can’t leave them there.  We can’t carry them.  We can’t—”

“We can,” Gold said.  He sighed.  “I know you don’t approve, but we can fit a few more birds in this cage.”

Emma protested.  “Gold, I can’t.  You know I can’t.”

“No, dearie, of course not.  Isn’t it lucky you’re not the only one here?  Belle, you said there are emergency signals when the people need to evacuate to more secure locations.  We need to set those off, to get everyone to the tomb beneath the Pyramid.  Protecting a smaller area will be easier on Emma.  We only need enough time for me to set up the rest of the spell and complete it.  That will get you and the others home.  Emma, no matter what they say to you, _don’t_ let any of our mutual acquaintances through.”  Emma had to admire how much disgust Gold could load into those two words, _mutual acquaintances._   He meant the Dark Ones.  And Hook.

She could still feel them at the edge of her mind.  “I won’t.”  Red eyes looked back at her, weighing her resolve.  “I _won’t._ ”

Gold, at least, simply nodded, believing her.  “Then, let’s get moving.  The sooner this is done, the better.”  But, the words seemed to leave a bitter taste in his mouth.  Like his grandson’s name, they burned, even if he had to say them.

_What do you really think of our chances, Gold?  And who do you think will be left when we’re done?_

If the red eyes were hoping she’d ask, she was only too glad to disappoint them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, I meant for Jefferson to talk some sense into Leroy. But, convincing a paranoid guard in a demon-infested universe to let in strangers when everything he knew told them they couldn't be human was too big a job even if the paranoid guard hadn't been Leroy.


	29. Amidst an Ocean of Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end draws nigh.

Belle and Jefferson drew their diskos as they made their way to the _necropolis_ as the alarms blared, leading them to the Tomb of the Sleeping Prince.  Grace put the golden cage down with relief when they reached it.  Emma stared at the writing on the tomb.

“Regina?”

“ _Reginae_ ,” Rumplestiltskin said. “It means belonging to the queen.  Or to Regina.” Almost apologetically, he added, “They teach Latin at Henry’s school.”

Emma grunted. “Fine. Whatever.  How do we wake him up?”

“We don’t.”

“Gold. . . .”

“Not yet, Miss Swan.  Think of yourself as the battery Henry draws on to keep up the barrier.  Henry is the circuit it passes through.  What he’s doing , he’s doing on instinct.  Wake him and, at best, you’ll break his concentration.  At worst, he won’t be able to put it back up at all.  Or not in time.”

Emma balled her hands into fists.  “We’re so close.”

“I know, Miss Swan.”  He looked out at the tombstones around them.  For some reason, Belle remembered one they had passed.  _Neal Cassidy.  Beloved Son._ “You’ll be back with your family soon.  I promise.”

“If this works.  You want to explain this fantastic plan of yours?”

“It’s simple enough, Miss Swan.  We just need time to complete it.”  He brought out the second of the black bags he’d brought.  “Which is what I’m doing now.  Try to be patient a little longer.  Jefferson, if you could please come with me.”

“What about Grace?”

“She can come if she wants.  If she’d feel safer by Belle and Miss Swan, I’m sure she’s welcome to stay.”

Grace looked uneasily at Rumplestiltskin, not quite trusting him.  But, she trusted her father.  “I’ll come with you, Papa.”

Rumplestiltskin nodded.  “Very well.  Jefferson, you’ll need to douse that weapon of yours for a bit.  It’s light will interfere with my work.”

“Of course, it will,” Jefferson said, sounding resigned before he followed Rumplestiltskin out into the shadows.  Rumplestiltskin walked until something fit whatever private measurements of darkness or distance he was making.  Belle could just barely make out him opening the bag and pulling out what looked like a small, pale stone.  He dropped it into the ground.  No, not the ground.  There was a small hole at his feet.  The stone fell into it.  The ground closed over it.  He walked a few feet further and dropped another.  One by one, they were swallowed up as he made a large circle around the tomb.  He spoke to Jefferson, who brought the point of his diskos against the ground, dragging it from covered hole to covered hole as he walked behind Gold.  The diskos itself stayed dark, but a small line of golden light sprung up behind it.

“How does he do that?” Belle asked.  “Get the ground to open up for him and make it glow?”

Emma shrugged.  “How should I know?  Probably asks nicely.  Wait, this is Gold.  He probably makes them an offer they can’t refuse.”  She frowned.  “How do you threaten dirt, anyway?”

“Do you know what he’s doing?”

“Something clever.  It’s always something clever with Gold.  Why, didn’t he tell you?”

Emma kept saying things like that, and Belle didn’t understand.  “Why should he tell me and not you? You’re his family, aren’t you?”

Emma opened her mouth, about to say something snide, then closed it.  “Yeah,” she said after a moment, subdued.  “Yeah, we’re his family.  But, we haven’t always been the best family.”  She sighed.  “It’s complicated.  _Really_ complicated.  How much time do you have?”

“Until the world ends, I think.”

“Good point.  All right.  You ever known a rescue dog?  No, of course not.  Never mind.  I don’t know Gold’s whole story, but he has a hard time getting close to people.  It’s like he doesn’t know whether to snarl and bite or. . . .  Well, mostly he snarls and bites.  That’s a metaphor,” she added.  “He doesn’t really bite.  I think.

“Anyway, the few times he has opened up, it hasn’t always worked out for him.  Not that he makes it easy.  And it’s not like he hasn’t. . . .  Well, doesn’t matter now.  It’s just you’re never sure what you’re going to get from him.  But, the guy would die for the people he loves.  Has died.  I mean, he’f charged a giant bear for y—for someone who mattered.  If he hurt someone he cared about, he’d tear the world apart for the chance just to say sorry.  But, you still might want to strangle him before he was through.”

Belle thought that over, weighing it against Emma’s own snarling and biting.  As she’d said, it was complicated. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“What’s a bear?”

“Uh, kind of like those hounds of yours? Only furrier.  And ten times as big. Or this one was. But, they don’t have in packs.” 

So, they attacked on their own.  That was good.  On the other hand, they wouldn’t care if others of their kind were getting hurt, which was the only way she’d survived the hounds.  “Like creepers, then.  Your world’s more dangerous than I thought.”

“Bears stay away from people.  Mostly.  This one was kind of my fault.  But, the thing is, Gold charged it.  He’s OK.  Mostly.”

“OK,” Belle repeated. “Mostly.” Emma made him sound like a creature in the Night but one that didn’t go hunting for people.  Her world didn’t have such things, but Emma’s did.  She tried to wrap her head around it.  “So, he’s like a bear?”

Emma laughed.  “Exactly.  A teddy bear or a giant with rabies.  You never know what you’re going to get.”  Emma looked at the far end of the necropolis.  Lights were beginning to appear.  “Are those your friends?”

Belle nodded.  The alarms all had different codes, telling people where to go for safety.  “I wish we had a barricade if it comes to a fight, something for people to shelter behind.”

“We do,” Gold said.  Belle started.  She hadn’t noticed him coming back from his rock planting.  She wondered if he’d heard the part about bears and if he could explain it.  “Or we will once we get everyone here.  Emma, you’ll need to bring the barrier in.  If you make it smaller, so it just surrounds this area, you can protect us.”

“What?  You said not to mess with the barrier.  And Henry’s the one doing the barrier, remember?”

“No, I said not to stop Henry from doing his part of the barrier.  He’s just a part.  You’re the other.  If you reach out, you should be able to feel it and pull it in—but not till we have everyone here.  Do you understand?  You don’t want to shrink the barrier while there are still people out there who need to be protected.”

“Why shrink it at all?  Can’t you do whatever it is you’re going to do with it full size?”

“Possibly,” Gold said. “But, that isn’t all we need to do.  A door’s been opened between this world and ours.  We need to close it— _without_ leaving anyone behind and _without_ taking anything with us we don’t mean to.  With a limited area, the protections I’ve set up, and the barrier you are going to maintain, we should be able to do that.”

He turned his attention back to Belle and Jefferson.  “Your friends are almost here.  I imagine they’ll feel better having you greet them than myself or Miss Swan.  Make sure they know to stay within the circle we made.  I’m going to set up the spell that will get us home.  Once you’ve got everyone settled, come join me.  You too, Miss Swan. I’m going to need you for part of this.”

X

It wouldn’t be hard to wake Henry, Rumplestiltskin thought.  But, he was telling the truth when he told Miss Swan what the consequences would be.  There was still a part of him that was tempted.  He would have liked to have shared a few words with the boy before they were done.  But, if he did, people would die.  Or worse.  There’d been no point in the Dark Ones marking the townsfolk when they were already trapped in this world.  That would change once there was a way out.

Even if Henry and Belle would ever forgive him for leaving their friends behind, he knew better than to let any of his kind back into the world.  Instead, he planted the stones he’d brought, one by one, while Jefferson followed behind him, leaving a trail of light.

“Jefferson,” Rumplestiltskin said.  “When this is over, you can have as much gold as you can carry from my storerooms.  _Just_ the gold,” he added. “Some of the other things are dangerous.”

“Your storerooms,” Jefferson said. “You mean back in your castle?  Not Storybrooke?”

“We’re going home.  Our real home.  Including Henry, this time.”

“Ohana means family,” Jefferson mused.  “Family means—”

“Don’t say it.  It’s just that leaving them is a bad idea.  When we get back. . . .” He hesitated, uncertain how much he should say.  “Storybrooke . . . was not always easy on Belle.  She likes to help people, and some of them took advantage of that.  But, they didn’t always return the favor.”  Meaning they’d sent her away empty-handed even when she was begging for their help.  Of course, since she was begging for help for _him_ , he could understand their reluctance.  But, still.  “When this is over, she’s going to need better than fair weather friends.  Promise me, you’ll be there for her.”

Jefferson looked at him oddly.  “Couldn’t you just turn them into snails if they’re not nice to her?”

“I’m not talking about protecting her.  My castle could keep out an army.  Belle needs people.  She needs friends.  Promise me.”

Jefferson glanced at his daughter, who was keeping silent though it was clearly costing her.  “I promise.”

“And see to it Whale behaves.”

“Don’t ask for miracles.  Although, I can threaten to toss him down my hat if gets out of line or starts digging up cemeteries.”  He looked around them.  “Sorry, that was funnier in my head.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

They finished their circuit around the tomb.  It was a large enough circle—more than large enough, but Rumplestiltskin believed in playing it safe whenever possible.  As Jefferson hadn’t said, no one gets left behind. 

Or almost no one.

All magic has its price.

He walked back to Emma and Belle, pretending not to hear the comments about bears.  Instead, he just left Belle and Jefferson, with their familiar faces, to convince the people arriving that they would be safe here.  He didn’t if they believed so long as they stayed in the circle and didn’t get in his way.  But, that was one of the advantages of living in a world shaped by the dreams of a fourteen year old boy who played too many video games and read far too many comics, the parts of it that weren’t shaped by nightmares and demons.  Like any good, action heroes who spent their days ready to fight for survival, the people began to organize themselves as soon as they came into the circle.  Warriors near the circle, children and the elderly towards the center, all of them with their diskos drawn and ready.

Rumplestiltskin went and stood beside the tomb’s door, making another, smaller circle.  It was a simple barrier.  It was not quite blood magic.  Emma, the mother of his son’s child, would be able to enter.  So would Belle.

He added another, slightly more complicated spell.  Emma, Belle, even Jefferson and Grace would know where he was.  But, the rest would ignore the small patch he’d claimed.

He brought out the third bag and held it over the ground.  Mauve and gold mist came pouring out, congealing into a large cauldron.  The spell within bubbled and boiled. 

Almost ready.

Last of all, a crystal vial came rolling out.  Rumplestiltskin caught it in his hand.  The glow of true love shone in the darkness, soft and golden.  He let it warm him for a moment before hiding it away again, burying the light.

 


	30. A Flicker of Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's one way out of the Underworld. The question is if they can make it.

Belle didn’t understand how any more than she understood any of the things Rumplestiltskin did, but he had his giant cauldron with him again boiling and giving off strange colored steam.  In his hand, he held a crystal vial.  Something glowed inside of it, softening his features with its gold light. 

She thought of the moonlight in his world.  It was silver to the vial’s gold but just as gentle, unlike the searing sun.  Even the sun wasn’t frightening, not the way the world outside the Pyramid was.  She’d been able to protect her eyes with the lenses Rumplestiltskin had given her.  Soon, her people would be there, in a world where ‘night’ mean a sky gleaming with jewels and where no one feared the outside.

A place where the world wasn’t dying. 

She looked at her people, setting up their well-drilled defenses.  _A world where we don’t have to be afraid._   “Are you ready to finish this?” she asked. 

He started, searching her face for . . . _something._ He smiled when he failed to find it.  “Soon enough,” he told. “Just let this cook a little longer.”

X

Emma had let Jefferson and Belle handle it as the people started showing up.  Some of the things about small towns Emma had learned hunting down bail jumpers was that there were the ones where people knew everyone and a stranger— whether it was someone skipping bail or the woman hunting down the bail jumper—stood out like a sore thumb.  Then, there were the ones where everyone only _mostly_ knew everyone and a stranger could blend in—unless she dressed like someone from the big city or opened her mouth and _talked_ like someone from the big city (never ask people in a fishing village on Cape Cod what they think of the Yankees.  Just _don’t_ ). 

Storybrooke was the latter, which meant so was the Pyramid.  Her not-from-here face might have passed muster (even if it was slightly tanned), but the scaled armor didn’t.  While she didn’t have a clue what was a good lie in this world, Jefferson didn’t have that problem.  She heard him saying, “An experiment we were working on,” and “No time to change when the alarms sounded.”  “R&D,” floated by a few times, which sounded weird, but this was Henry’s world.  Why shouldn’t the post-apocalypse, giant pyramid surrounded by demons have an R&D department? 

“Something wrong?” Jefferson asked her during a lull.

“I’m just waiting for people to start asking me questions I can’t answer.”

“I’ve covered that.”

“Yeah, that’s going to work find until the real R&D people show up.”

“They’re already here.  Don’t worry.  There are three groups in different sections for safety.”

Safety.  Meaning, if one got taken out—killed, possessed by demons, or whatever else there was to worry about around here—the others would still be around.

Yeah, definitely not Kansas—or Storybrooke—anymore.  She couldn’t even blame that one on Henry.  In this world, what would have been massiveamounts of paranoia back home was on the same level as looking both ways before crossing the street.

“I told people your armor’s a design they were working on for fighting in the Night, not in the Pyramid.”

“I thought you didn’t let women out of the Pyramid.” She was still trying to figure out if she could blame Henry for rules in an imaginary world he’d made up while unconscious and trying to save everyone from being eaten by monsters in the Underworld (probably).

“We don’t, but they work in R&D.  Besides, if the Barrier falls, what we do won’t matter, will it?”

“We’re getting out of here alive,” Emma said. 

Jefferson gave her a weak smile.  “You almost sound certain.”

“I am.  This will work.”

“Because failure is not an option.”  Jefferson looked out into the darkness.  “Or not one we can do anything about if it happens.”

“Gold promised to get your daughter out.  If anyone can do it, he can.”

“I know,” Jefferson’s hand tightened on his weapon.  “And I mean to make sure he has everything he needs to do it.”

“And I’m one of those things.  We’ll get her out of here.  We’ll get all of you.”  _All of you._ Her parents were somewhere out in the crowd.  So was her baby brother.  She wanted to find them, to tell them to go stand by Gold and do whatever he said to get them out alive.

And that would take time, finding them, convincing them to do what she told them, time they didn’t have.  She looked over towards Gold.  He had his cauldron up and boiling.  Whatever, he had planned, he was ready for it.  He just needed her to do her part before it was too late.

Time.  She was wasting it.  Whatever Gold needed to set up, he’d set up.  She could see him talking to Belle.  It was time for him to tell her how to save the world. 

Emma headed over, trying not to look for her parents or brother as she made her way through the crowd.  Jefferson trailed behind her.

X

“It’s simple,” Gold told Miss Swan, keeping one eye on her and one of the spell he had simmering.  Too many things to do at once, teach Miss Swan, ready the spell, and protect it till it was time. It was almost done, but there were still so many things that could go wrong, from one of the Dark Ones finding a way into the circle to Miss Swan deciding (as she frequently did) he was evil, his spell was evil (which it was.  Technically), and destroying everything he’d set in place.

So many ways to go wrong.  And only one way to go right. 

“That’s what you always say,” Miss Swan growled.

“Only when it’s true.  Some magic is complex, hundreds of details that all need to be perfectly balanced or everything falls apart.” For example, if someone destroyed the curse that let Storybrooke exist while the town was magically balanced over a precipice leading straight to the Underworld, to pick a possibility purely at random. “This isn’t like that. It’s a part of you. It’s no more difficult than feeling your hand or the rush of air when you breathe.  Close your eyes.  Clear your mind.  You don’t need to create anything.  You just need to focus on what’s already there.”

Miss Swan opened her mouth to protest (old habits died hard) before thinking better of it.  She closed her eyes and, Gold devoutly hoped, did what he’d asked.  Her face stilled, became peaceful.  Then, she gasped, he eyes flying open.  “I feel it!”

Gold nodded, allowing himself a small, approving smile.  “I knew you could, Emma.  What does it feel like to you?”

“Light,” she said.  “It’s warm.  Golden.”

“Concentrate on that.  That’s what you’re gathering in, that light, that warmth.  Nothing else.” _No one_ else.  “The other things you see out there, the darkness, the fire, leave them.  Don’t let them in.”

He saw the strain around her eyes.  She knew what he was telling her.  “Anything else?”

“You need to get to the circle I made.  Draw the barrier to that.  Try to think of it merging with the line.  Then hold it there.  No matter what happens, _hold it_.”

X

Emma stood at the line.  She closed her eyes again, reaching out for the light.  _It’s mine.  It’s_ me _, my magic, my power._

“You can do this,” Jefferson said.

“You almost sound certain.”

Jefferson ignored her weak joke.  Or didn’t notice it.  “I am.  I remember when you came into Storybrooke.  You didn’t even know there was a curse but you’d already started fighting it.  It began crumbling the moment you crossed the town line.”

“I wasn’t the one who made it.”

“You didn’t make this one, either.”

“Close enough.  I was the Dark One.  If I use any of the magic I learned from them, even if I don’t know what I’m doing, I could ruin everything.”

“So, make sure you’re using light.”

“How?  Think about rainbows and unicorns?”

“Think about the things you love.  Think about the things that are worth fighting for, the things you’d die to protect.  Don’t be afraid for them.  Just think of them, see your magic keeping them safe and secure.”

“How do you know about this?  You’re the crazy guy who used to kidnap school teachers.”

“Accused murderers.  And I saved her life, didn’t I?  She was heading for the town line.  And I know about this because I know about making doorways.”

“I thought you just found them in your hat.”

“Why would you think that?  Doors have to be made.  When you make a house, the door has to fit.  The frame has to be strong enough to hold up the walls and roof.  The door needs to be strong enough to keep out the storms or open enough to let in the breeze.  Or both.  Do it wrong, and the door won’t fit.  Do it really wrong, and the whole thing may crash down on you.  And that’s regular, wood and stone doorways.  Metaphorical doorways are even worse.  Especially when you’re stepping across worlds.  They need to be _right_.  They need to match—to belong—to both sides if they’re to open at all.”

“If that’s the way it works, why did you need me to make a hat?”

“The hat let me find the wall between worlds, the place where I could make a doorway.  So, stop trying to tell yourself I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“I didn’t—”

“Didn’t you?  You’re scared about making a mistake.  But, you’re also scared about doing it right.  If you can do this, then it’s on you, isn’t it?  And, if it goes wrong, that’s all on you, too.  But, if you convince yourself you can’t fix this, then no one can blame you.

 _You know what the issue is with this world?  Everyone wants some magical solution to their problem, and everyone refuses to believe in magic_. 

Or everyone wants their problems fixed, and no one wants to believe _they_ can fix them.

Emma closed her eyes.  She reached out and felt the Barrier.  Just touching it seemed to fill up a cold place inside of her, like when she was a little girl and would wrap herself up in the blanket she’d been found with as a baby.  No matter how bad things were, no matter what people said or did, she knew someone had made that blanket for her.  Someone, somewhere had cared enough to make it and put her name on it.  She mattered to someone.

 _These people matter to me,_ Emma thought.  _No matter how bad things are, no matter what happens, they matter, and I’m going to get them home safe._

She gathered the Barrier in, drawing it through the Pyramid walls, and level after level of the great fortress.  Here and there, it burnt through small nightmares that had wormed their way in.  She felt them as they turned to ash at its touch.  She also tried to watch for anything else, for people who had fallen behind or been forgotten.  But, there weren’t any.  Everyone was here.

 _Henry,_ Emma thought.  She knew what his life had been like under the curse, trying to tell everyone what was happening and none of them ever listening to him.  _He made a world where no one was ignored or forgotten, not when it really mattered._

She felt it as the Barrier hit the hidden vein of light Gold had planted around the last refuge.  The Barrier, touching it, was like a puzzle piece finding where it belonged, locking into place.

She’d done, she’d merged it. 

She opened her eyes and saw Hook looking back at her.  He was smiling.

“Thanks for letting us in, Swan.”

X

Rumplestiltskin watched Emma go.  This was it.  No more excuses, no more putting things off.

He brought out a knife—a regular knife—and cut a few strands of hair, adding them to the cauldron.  He handed it to Belle.  “Your turn.  I need a lock of your hair.”

Belle took the knife and slit off a curl.  “Why?” she asked, handing the red-brown curl and the knife back to him.  The knife vanished back into a hidden pocket.  He held the hair in his hand for a moment, running his thumb along it, feeling its silky texture, wanting so badly to reach out and touch Belle. . . .

He dropped the curl into the cauldron.

“This spell is being shaped between us,” Rumplestiltskin said.  A part of him wanted to explain in detail.  It was _clever_ , what he’d done.  No, not clever, _brilliant._

No time.  No time at all.

“I’ve made it, but you’re the one who has to cast it.  To do that, you need to be part of it.”

“Me?” Belle said.  “You’re the—the _wizard.”_ She said it as if it were a foreign word from a language she didn’t know (which, he supposed, it was.  For people living in a fortress surrounded by demons, they had a remarkably hardnosed view of reality.  Ah, Henry).  “I can’t do magic.”

“You don’t need to,” Rumplestiltskin said. “I’ve done that.  You just need to finish it.  And for that—” He drew out the crystal vial once again.  “—you need to remember.”

Belle looked at the vial as though it were slug.  “I don’t understand.”

“You don’t need to.”  He took out the stopper and held out the vial towards Belle.  “Just know that True Love can break any curse.”

The gold light flowed toward her.  Belle breathed it in.  He saw her eyes widen as the shock of memory hit her.  “Rumplestiltskin.”

He smiled at the recognition in her voice.  More than anything, he wanted to draw her close, to take her in his arms and forget everything else around them.

No time.

A part of him argued the he could.  He could take Belle away, grabbing Henry in his enchanted sleep on the way out, and leave Emma to sort things out on her own.  It wasn’t as if she hadn’t nearly killed him herself a time or three.

And Belle would never forgive him. 

No, be honest.  He could make Belle forget and spin some story for Henry, saying he’d done his best.  But, he would never forgive himself. 

_Imagine me with those powers. Can you imagine me with those powers, Bae?  I could get to redeem myself.  I could turn it towards good.  I’ll save all the children of the Frontlands—not just you, my boy._

_I could get to redeem myself._

That’s what he’d said when he’d taken his curse.  _I’ll save all the children,_ he promised Bae’s soul, wherever it might be.  _And all the rest of them, too._

_Just not you._

But, it would save the rest of them.  And it would save Belle.  It was enough.

“Rumplestiltskin—” Belle said, reaching out to him.

He put out a hand, stopping her.  “Not now, Sweetheart.  We need to stop this, and you’re the only one who can complete this spell.”

He pulled out the last ingredient.  It had once been crystal white (not _snow_ white, thank you very much).  Now, its glow was dim.  Here and there, soot gray lines were already working their way back into it.  But, none of that mattered.  It was his heart.

He pressed it into Belle’s hands.  “The heart of the thing you love most, Sweetheart.  That’s how you’re getting everyone home.”

X

Jefferson watched as the Barrier appeared inside the old cemetery, slowly closing in on the circle Rumplestiltskin had made.  Shadows moved behind it.

No, not shadows, Silent Ones.  Or Dark Ones.  That’s what they really were, Rumplestiltskin’s undead frat brothers.  Unlike the Dark One he knew, Jefferson did not like the way they partied.

 _“_ Thanks for letting us in, Swan.”

Watching Emma, Jefferson thought she believed the Silent One for a moment.   She looked desperately up and down the Barrier, but her fear faded once she saw the barrier was still there between them.

“You think this will keep us out?” the Dark One sneered.  “You’ve let it drop twice already.  How long before you fail again?  That’s what you do best, isn’t it Swan?  Fail people just when they need you the most.”

“I tried to save you, Killian,” Emma said desperately.

Killian?  Jefferson gave the Dark One a closer look.  There was the usual, hooded face, nothing to see but darkness and glowing eyes.  But, there was something else, an image that flickered in and out of existence, a pale face twisted with hate and anger.  Hook.

She thought Emma must be able to see it, too.  She could barely look the Dark One in the eyes as she begged him not to be angry (begged?  Since when did Emma Swan _beg?_ ).  “Please, Killian, you wanted to go out a hero.  This isn’t what heroes do.  You don’t want—”

“Don’t I?  Do you remember everything I’ve done for you, Swan?  I gave up my revenge.  I fought against the Queen of Hearts.  I let you and your friends get away from the giants even though I knew she’d come after me.  When everyone else had given up, _I_ was the one who found the way to go after you.  And you let me die!”

Jefferson frowned.  That didn’t match up with what he knew, but Emma flinched as if each word struck home.  “That’s not what I heard,” Jefferson said.  “I heard the whole problem was that Emma wouldn’t let you die. Can’t say that I see why she needed to keep you around, but I’m sure you must be a barrel of laughs at parties.”

Killian scowled.  “Got yourself a new lapdog, Swan?  I should have known.  You never could handle being with a real man.  You wanted a tame puppy and you could never deal with it when I wouldn’t play along, could you?”

Emma, as Jefferson had figured out while falling out of a third story window, was perfectly capable of standing up for herself.  But, she cringed at every word this Dark One said.

“You’re saying you’re not house-trained?” Jefferson broke in.  “It’s nothing to brag about.  Didn’t anyone explain chamber pots to you in the old world?  Bathrooms are about the same, just less smelly.”

“Going to let your new boy toy do all the talking, Swan?  Can’t speak up for yourself?”

“She just doesn’t have my experience dealing with stupid,” Jefferson said. “I had twenty-eight years of it in Storybrooke.  ‘Hello, Jefferson, how are you today?’ ‘Just fine. You realize we’re under a curse and none of us are who we think we are?’ ‘That’s insane, Jefferson. Have a nice day.’  For twenty-eight years.”

“Swan—”

“And that’s another thing.  She has a name, you know.  It wouldn’t kill you to say it.  Oh, wait, was that insensitive of me, what with you being dead?  But, even if it could kill you, it wouldn’t.”

“Shut up!  What do you know?  I _died_ for her.  I took a wound even magic couldn’t heal and I—”

“I had my head chopped off.   Get over it.”

“ _She owes me!_ ”

“Owes you?  For what?  Chasing after her when she told you to get lost?  Trying to kill her family?  Dragging everyone she knows into this hellhole?”

“She—”

“Shut up!”  Emma shouted.  “Both of you, shut up!”

Light exploded outward from the Barrier.  Killian and the other Dark Ones scattered back, like autumn leaves in a strong wind.

“Killian, I’m sorry you’re dead.  But, I’ve had enough.  You’re the one who let Zelena out.  You’re the one who gave her the wand that took her to Camelot.  She was the one helping Arthur when he almost killed you.  Maybe I should have let you die, but don’t you dare say it was my fault for what led up to that.”

The Dark One’s ghostly form had collapsed.  He looked like a small pile of rags and tatters.  The hooded head lifted itself.  Something, not quite a face, a familiar collection of lines and shapes that _almost_ could have been a person looked back at her.

“Please, Swan,” he whispered.  “Please.”  He lifted up what might have been his hand.  “You don’t know what it’s like.  You don’t understand.  Don’t leave me here.  You’re the only one who can free us.  Please. . . .”

“He wants you to take his hand,” Jefferson said.  He pulled out a black bag Rumplestiltskin had given him.

“I know,” Emma said. “That’s what you’re trying to do, isn’t it?” she asked Killian.  “You want to mark me, to take my place.”

“It’s only fair.  It’s your fault I’m here.  You’re the one who should have died.  Not me, Swan.  You need to make it right. . . .”

  
Emma’s face was a mix of emotions: grief, guilt, anger, frustration.  Jefferson thought she would curse him and walk away.  Instead, she said, “I’m sorry, Killian.  I really am.  But, I know what you’ll do if you come back.  I know what you did before.  You got angry, and people died.  You nearly killed my whole family just to get back at me.  None of that would have happened if I’d let you go.” 

Jefferson recognized the look on Emma’s face even if he’d never seen it on someone else before.  He recognized every painful line.  It was the same look that had been on his own face when his wife was dying and he knew nothing he did could change that.

“I’m sorry, Killian,” Emma whispered.  “I’m letting you go.”

Light pushed out again.  This time, it didn’t fade.  The Dark Ones might still be there, but no one on this side could see them or hear them.

“Is that wise?” Jefferson asked.  “It must take a lot of power.”

“Not as much as the whole Barrier.  With whatever Gold put under it—”

“Sunlight,” Jefferson said.  “The circle is made of sunlight.  Nothing that could hold back a living Dark One.  But, they’re dead.  Undead.  And this is the Underworld.  It has power here.”

“That almost makes sense,” Emma said.

“It’s the same thing with Nomes and eggs.”

“And that doesn’t.  Why could you understand him?  I don’t think anyone else here, could.”

“Something Rumplestiltskin gave me.”  Jefferson held up the bag, the same one Rumplestiltskin had hidden sunlight in before letting it out as they ran towards the Pyramid, and where he had hidden the fourth member of their little party once the light was gone.

“Zoso,” Emma said.  “Gold put him in there.  Didn’t want to freak out the guards.  Not that it helped.”

“He said, if it looked like the Dark Ones were getting to you, I should throw the bag through the Barrier.  Your friend would be able to drive them back for a while.  But, you took care of that on your own.”

Emma nodded.  Whether that meant she agreed or just couldn’t bother to do more than smile and nod (not that she was smiling) Jefferson didn’t know.

“It’s good to have backup,” Emma said, wearily.  “But . . . we can’t take him with us, Jefferson.  He’s _dead._   I mean, even if he’s OK with it for now. . . .”

“I know,” Jefferson said. “He can come back.  A life for a life.  Rumplestiltskin told me that, too.”

“Really?  That’s a better briefing than I ever got out of him.  Did he say what to do about it?”

“The same thing I would have done if you’d listened to Killian.”

Jefferson threw the bag through the barrier.  It should have been light, like an empty bit of cloth, the same as it had been the entire time he’d been carrying it.  Instead, it had some heft.  Just a bit, like a baseball, he thought.  He threw it easily.  The bag, whatever it was, had let Zoso pass through to the Pyramid before.  Now, it let him out.  Jefferson hoped it hit Killian in the head.

An image went through his mind.  Though he couldn’t see it, he could picture the bag landing on the other side.  Zoso rose out of it, majestic compared to his tattered brethren, cowering in the light.  He bowed his head, then turned and flew out into the night.

Jefferson wondered if it really happened.  He’d have to ask Rumplestiltskin when he got the chance.

X

Belle should have been cautious as the light streamed out of the vial.  It could have been poison, for all she knew.  But, she breathed it in.  Ragged pains she’d barely been aware of were soothed.  She’d found the warm, rich air of Rumplestiltskin’s gardens overwhelming.  This—this was as if every breath she’d ever taken had been a small, dry blade burning down her raw throat and piercing her lungs; and, now, for the first time in her life, all those wounds closed up, breathing was sweet and full of life.  As if everything in her life had been broken and now she was whole.

No, it was more than that, more than anything she had words for—more than anything she could imagine finding words for, not if she were to read all the books ever written since the dawn of time.

She knew who she was: Belle, Belle of the Marchlands, Belle of Avonlea, of the Dark Castle, Belle Gold.

The man standing in front of her was her husband, her true love, the man who had driven back Ogres to save her people because she agreed to dust and serve him tea. 

She didn’t know what had happened, how everyone had come to be trapped in this nightmare world.  But, Rumplestiltskin had pulled her out of it.  That done, he and Emma had come here to pull everyone else out as well.  He came for her.  He always came for her.

They had been together for days, since he first managed to reach out to her and tell her how to come back to him, but she hadn’t known.  She had been afraid, wanting to trust him, to believe he could save them, afraid of what trusting him and what it could cost.  She knew it had been magic, a curse to make everyone forget not just that there’d been a better world but that there was anything better they could escape to.

But, it still seemed impossible that she had stood beside him all this time and never recognized him.  She said his name, knowing at last who it really belonged to, and reached out to him.  But, Rumplestiltskin stopped her.

“Not now, Sweetheart,” he told her.  He looked sad and wistful.  “We need to stop this.”  He hesitated, as if he didn’t want to tell her the rest of this.  “And you’re the only one who can complete this spell.”

 _Her?_   That made no sense.  Rumplestiltskin was the Dark One, a wizard without equal in all the worlds.  She’d learned to mix a potion and read through some of the histories of spells and magic.  She could do research that impressed even Merlin.  But, Rumplestiltskin was the one who cast spells, not her.

She was about to tell him as much when he reached into his chest and pulled out his heart, offering it to her.

“The heart of. . . .” Again, he hesitated, searching her eyes as if she would deny him.  “. . . .The thing you love most.” It was a question.  He was like a child seeking reassurance.

The fear in his voice made her want to shout, _Of course, I do!  I’ve always loved you!  Since the very start!_   But, she knew what it meant—what he would ask her to do—if she said yes.

Very gently, he said, “That’s how you’re getting everyone home.”

“Except you,” she whispered.

Rumplestiltskin shrugged.  “It’s the only way.”

“No, there must be something else—”

Again, he shrugged.  “And, if I had time, maybe I could find it.  But, I don’t, Sweetheart.  _We_ don’t have more time, and this is the only solution I have.”

“You can’t ask this.”  She had spent days sitting beside him, after the darkness left him and the Apprentice had returned his heart, bright and clear as moonlight to his chest.  Only the hope of finding the Apprentice’ master and, she had desperately prayed, a cure had driven her from his side.  She remembered collapsing in the street when Rumple and Pan dissolved into golden light, dying to save them.

Light like the vial of true love.

Merlin’s prophecy, a Dark One who would finally be able to change the curse’s magic to light.  She had seen it fulfilled without even knowing.

 “Please, Rumple, I _can’t_.  And I can’t lose you.  Not again.” 

“Can you lose Henry?  Or Grace?  I promised Jefferson to save his daughter.  And what about Neal Nolan and all the other children?”

“Then _you_ cast it.”

He leaned in close, brushing back her hair and whispering into her ear.  Belle froze. 

_No, he didn’t say—It couldn’t be—_

“It’s true, Sweetheart.  Remember,” he said, very softly, his lips brushing against her skin. “It’s not a curse if it’s given freely.”

His mouth found hers and closed over it.  One hand pressed his heart against her palm.  She could feel the warm pulse against her skin.  His other hand cupped her around her fingers, pressing them closed.  Her mind screamed a protest, but she didn’t try to stop him as she felt crumble, the pulse dying away.  Dust slipped between her fingers, falling into the cauldron.  At the last moment, she curled her fingers tight around the last fragment, not wanting to let it go.

_It’s not a curse if it’s given freely._

Was that true?  Or just another clever play with words?  Something he told her because to make the pain a little more bearable.

_He’s given you his life.  Don’t waste it._

Her grip tightened around the last fragment.  She opened her fingers and imagined a trail of dust, glittering white with touches of shadow, falling into the cauldron; but her eyes were on Rumplestiltskin.

He was still smiling.  He had no breath left, but his lips shaped three word as he slowly fell to the ground.

_I love you._

Then, three more.

_Both of you._

Smoke, gold and white with edges of shadow, boiled out of the cauldron as the world around them vanished.

Belle was in the garden of the Dark Castle, kneeling on the grass, weeping.  Rumplestiltskin lay at her feet.


	31. Home Again

Belle had watched Emma come marching up the path to the castle.  She had the grim, angry tread of someone who had been walking far too long but would bite off the head of anyone who told her to take a break and rest.  Belle remembered the long hours during the Ogres War, working with the healers, managing their dwindling supplies, and organizing the ever growing number of refugees coming through the castle gates.  She knew that look well.

Jefferson went down to speak to her.  For some reason, he and his daughter had been sent to the castle instead of his cottage, though he’d appeared in the main hall, not Rumple’s workroom, where he’d found Belle holding Rumple’s body, sobbing.

The last time, there hadn’t been a body.  The last time, finding herself back in their old world, Rumple’s death had felt like a dream.  She and Neal had known better; but, in those first few days when they were just trying to survive, it had been easier not to think about it.  Oh, they’d known the truth, but they hadn’t believed it.  She supposed that was why it had been so easy for them to fall for Zelena’s trap.  Of course, they could bring Rumple back because, deep down, they hadn’t believed he was dead.

Perhaps, this was better.  The pain was fresh and raw but it was keeping her from doing anything stupid.

Not that there was anything stupid she could do, not this time.  She’d been to the Dark One’s vault, meaning to put up some protections in case someone (like Zelena) tried to bring him back again (or had she been lying to herself?  Trying to think of some way to undo what she’d done?  Not that she dared do that, not now. Rumplestiltskin would never forgive her if she died saving him).  But, the vault was gone.

Maybe it was because of how he’d died this time.  Or maybe it was because of something he’d put in the spell, reshaping this world when they returned to it.  All she knew was that Rumple was really gone this time. 

She wondered what Emma wanted.  Help from Rumple, most likely.  That was the only reason anyone ever came here. 

A few minutes after she’d seen Jefferson let Emma in, there was a knock at the workroom door.  “Belle?” Jefferson said from the other side.  “There’s someone here to see you.  It’s Emma—Emma Swan.” 

As if there were a dozen Emmas Belle might confuse her with.  Her murmured assent would have been too soft for Jefferson to hear if he were in the room with her, much less through a door of solid oak, but he opened it anyway, letting Emma in.

“Belle, I’m so sorry,” Emma said.  She looked stricken.  Jefferson must have told her, then.

Belle murmured some response, smoothing  the black skirt of her mourning dress, one of several she had found in her room on her return.  It might have been the spell that had brought them here—when Regina cast it, it had created a whole town, after all—or it might have been the castle’s own magic.  She hoped it was the castle, that it cared, in its own way, that its master was gone.

Her mind had been wandering, she realized.  Emma had been saying something to her.  “I’m sorry?”

“I came to check on you guys,” Emma said.  “The curse—” Emma flushed, as if she’d said something she shouldn’t have.  Oh, of course.  She meant the spell that had returned them.  She meant Rumplestiltskin’s death.  “We’re all back, I think.  We’ve had messages from all over the kingdom.  A lot of people woke up in their old homes.  But, the town—Storybrooke—a big piece of it landed right outside the castle—my parents’ castle.  Other things from our—from that world are turning up all over the place.  That’s another thing,” she said.  “Their castle was destroyed by the last curse.  A lot of places were.  But, it’s back, along with a lot of the others.”

“Oh, yes,” Belle said. “That makes sense.”

“It does?”

Belle nodded absently.  She had found Rumple’s notes along with a letter he had written to her.  She had read it over and over again since getting back.  _Belle, I’m so sorry. . . ._ “Rumple thought it out carefully,” she said. “You know what he was like.  He wanted to cover all the details.”  She smiled despite herself.  “The rooms from his house have been mixed into the castle.  So have the rooms from his shop.”

“That sounds like him,” Emma said.

“He was a packrat,” Belle said. “He never liked to give anything up.” Not magic wands or clumsy maids, he’d fight tooth and nail to get either of them back if they were stolen from him.  Nothing would stop him from bringing them home safe.

Not even death.

“But, you haven’t told me what brings you here,” Belle said.  “There was something you needed?”

Emma, for some reason, looked as if she’d been slapped.  “I came to check on you,” she grated, as though it should have been obvious.  Should it have been?  Belle remembered sitting by Rumple’s bedside in the days after he’d first been freed from his curse, not knowing if he would live or die.  Blue had come by.  Belle still remembered the first words out of the fairy’s mouth:  _You should go and help them with Emma._  

“Check on me?”

“We’ve heard from everyone else.  But, not from you.  We were worried.”

“You were?  I mean, thank you.  That’s very kind.”  She frowned.  Emma had walked up the path to the castle.  “You came alone?  On foot?”

“I drove,” Emma said.  “The some of the cars came back, too.  Along with the town gas station.  Regina and Blue are still arguing about whether or not it’ll get magically refilled, but I had enough to get this far.”

“Oh,” Belle said.  Just talking was exhausting.  Just _thinking_ was exhausting.  She wanted to curl up and rest, to ignore everything.  But, something Emma had said.  It reminded her. . . .  Oh, yes, that was it.  “It should continue filling,” Belle said.  “It’s a modification of how things were able to travel past the town line to the town.  So long as small towns in Maine still have gasoline, we should be able to get it.  But, only in about the same amount we always used.  And, if there’s a gas shortage in that world or everyone goes solar, that could cut us off.  But, we should be good for the short term.”  She thought over what Emma had said, feeling she was still missing something.  What was it? Oh, of course.  “You drove?  But, you walked to the gate.”

“Have you ever tried driving up that path?” Emma asked.  “I gave up about ten miles back and walked the rest.”

“You should have taken a horse.”

“We don’t use them in my world, remember?  I’ve never even been on a pony ride.”

“A carriage, then.”

Emma shrugged.  “Maybe next time.  Belle, are you all right?  No, forget that.  There’s no way you’re all right.  But, how are you?”

How was she? 

Belle was struggling for an answer when Jefferson came in with the tea tray.  His daughter, right behind him, was carrying a platter full of sandwiches.

Jefferson managed to bring over a small table while still handling the tea with a skill Belle thought the best of royal servants might envy.  His checkered past had led to some very odd talents.  For now, he seemed determined to play her butler instead of her guest.  Because a butler could fix her tea and hand her a small plate piled high with sandwiches with a look that told her she had better eat as much as she could or else.  A guest couldn’t.

“Thank you, Jefferson, Grace,” Belle said as the food was distributed.  “Emma, you remember Grace, don’t you?  She’s a friend of Henry’s.”

“How’s Henry?” Grace asked. “Papa said he was in the tomb in a glass coffin in—in that place.”  _That place._ They avoided saying _the Underworld._   From the look on Emma’s face, Belle guessed it was the same with her family and everyone else.  Anxiously, Grace asked. “Is he all right?”

Emma nodded.  “He’s up and around.  My mom and Regina don’t want to let him out of their sight.  That’s why he’s not here.  He wanted to know—” Emma stopped herself, but Belle thought she could fill in the rest.

_He wanted to know his grandfather was all right._

“You should bring him next time you visit,” Belle said, not expressing any doubts that there would be a next time or that Emma would let him accompany her.  “Or he could come on his own.  He’s always welcome here.”

It had lightened Rumplestiltskin’s heart in those last days when Henry had wanted to work in his shop, to spend time with the person who had raised his father.  Belle hadn’t known about the darkness eating away at Rumplestiltskin, then.  But, she’d seen the difference, the softness in his eyes when he’d been with his grandson. The time they’d spent together had lightened Rumple’s heart.  For a little while.

Even if it had been more complicated than Henry wanting to know his grandfather.  Because, it was always more complicated with Rumplestiltskin, wasn’t it?

“He’d like that,” Emma said.

Jefferson cleared his throat.  “Grace, I think we should leave the ladies alone to talk.  Emma, you’ll be staying the night, won’t you?  Grace and I will get a room ready for you.”

“It’s not a problem,” Emma said.  “I can. . . . Uh, I can. . . .”  The difficulties of hiking another ten miles began to dawn on her. 

“Nonsense,” Belle said.  “It will be getting dark soon.  You don’t want to be hiking through the woods at night.”  _Night._   Belle suppressed a shiver, remembering what that had meant to her just a few days ago.  “Besides,” she added quickly.  “There’s plenty of room.”

A moment passed after Jefferson and Grace left.  Belle nibbled at her sandwich.  She wished some of those magic meal-pills from the last world had come back with them.  She knew she needed to eat but she’d been the same when her mother died.  And during the Ogre War.  And when she knew she would have to marry Gaston.  Her stomach was tied up in knots.  Just the smell of food could make her sick.  “I’m glad Henry’s well,” she said politely when they were alone again.

“Yeah, he wanted to come, but—”

“But, your family didn’t want him visiting the Dark One.”

Emma looked away, embarrassed.  “They’re kind of over-protective right now.”

“Of course.  I’m surprised they let you come on your own.”

Emma snorted.  “As far as I know, they’re still arguing about whether it’s a good idea or not.  I left them to it and got in the bug.”

‘The bug’ was Emma’s Volkswagen.  Given the roads in the kingdom, Belle was impressed Emma had only walked the last few miles.  Maybe magic had something to do with it.  Not that that was the only problem.  “Should I expect your parents’ army to show up to rescue you?”

“They’re not that bad,” Emma said.

Belle was too tired to argue.  She shrugged.  “What was it you needed, Emma?  Rumple’s gone but, if I can help you. . . .”  Was that what she was doing?  Becoming the new Dark Lady, offering magic at a price? 

Did she have any choice?  Her hands went unconsciously to her stomach.  It wasn’t as if she could go back to her father’s lands.  For good or ill, she was always going to be Rumplestiltskin’s wife in this world.  She might not have friends but she could get allies, people who would help her—or decide not to attack her—so long as she was useful.

“I told you, I came to check on you,” Emma snapped.  “You saved us.  You saved _all_ of us.  Did you think I was just going to walk away from you?”

Belle gave another shrug.  “It wouldn’t be the first time.”  _Allies,_ she told herself.  _You need allies._ But, her mouth was already running away with her.  “When Zelena imprisoned Rumplestiltskin, your parents decided to sneak into the castle to see him.  Not to try and rescue him.  Not to see if there was some way they could help him.  He had information they needed.  Otherwise, they wouldn’t have bothered.

“When we got here, Zelena had him in a cage.  He was insane, filthy, abused.  Your mother said it was _nothing that can’t be undone_.”  ‘Undone,’ in this case, meant Neal dying and Rumple losing the precarious balance he’d managed for centuries, the darkness eating away at what was left of his heart.

Belle had played her part in that disaster, too, not seeing what has happening to him, responding with anger when finally saw how far Rumplestiltskin had fallen.  But, Ogres take her if she let that blind her anymore to what her so-called friends had done.  “When Hook threatened to kill him, I went to your family and _begged_ for help.  They wouldn’t give me the time of day.  When he was in a coma, not one of them stepped through the door to even see how he was—and don’t tell me they were worried about you.  We were all worried about you.  But, Rumplestiltskin was _dying_ , and they didn’t care.  So, I’m sorry if I have trouble believing you care now.”

Emma bit her lip and looked away.  But, after a moment, she turned and looked back at Belle.  “Henry was the only one I told before I left.  He told me how he asked Gold for a job in his shop.  He told him he wanted to know about his father, but. . . .” Emma hesitated, not sure how to say this. 

It was all right.  Belle knew the truth about this one, too.  “But, he really wanted to get information from him.  Yes, Rumple told me.  If it makes you feel better, it didn’t matter.  He enjoyed spending time with Henry.  I didn’t know what was happening to Rumple, how the darkness was destroying him, but I could still see the difference after he’d spent time with Henry.  I think it gave him time, his love for Henry was one of the things that let him hold out as long as he did.”

“It wasn’t a lie,” Emma said. “Not completely.  Henry told me before I left that he knew Regina wouldn’t let him spend time with Gold if he didn’t give her a reason.  He meant it when he told her he was trying to find secrets.  But, he meant what he told Gold, too.”

Had he?  Belle remembered the rose Henry had somehow coated with gold in the Underworld, how he had let her draw on his magic, saving her life, even when it endangered everyone else. 

Emotion and instinct, she thought.  That’s what his magic had been running on.  The boy had been in a coma, the same as Rumple.  Emotion and instinct were all he had.

“Did you—are you having a funeral?” Emma asked.

“There’s a crypt below the castle,” Belle said.  “We put Rumple there.”  She had washed his body, putting him in the same clothes he had worn when he’d given her a rose, long ago, a preservation spell from his storeroom keeping off the worse ravages of death.  Jefferson had spoken a few words, which was more than Belle could manage.

“After Neal died, I wasn’t in a good place,” Emma said.  “I’d lost him, Graham.  Even Walsh.  I knew he’d been lying to me from the start but. . . .”

“But, you loved him,” Belle said. 

“I thought I did.  Maybe it was even real.  I don’t know what happened because Zelena controlled him and what happened because it was something he decided to do.

“But, it hurt.  There was an empty place inside me, and I would have done anything to fill it up.  Turns out, I made an even worse mistake than a flying monkey. 

“So, tell me the truth.  How are you really holding up?” Emma asked.

She sounded concerned.  Maybe she was.  Did it matter?  Trying to untangle motives, truths from half-truths and outright lies, it was more than Belle could manage.  “I get up in the morning because . . .  I have to get up.  And, I know, if I keep doing it, if I keep pushing myself to get through, someday, I won’t have to force myself.  I’ll just get up.”

Her hand closed over her stomach again.  “I would have told him to use my heart,” she told Emma.  “He’d died for me once already.  It was only fair.  Maybe he still would have won that argument.  You know what he was like with words.  Maybe. . . .  But, there was no time.  And he told me. . . .  He told me. . . .  He could still see the future, you know.  Bits of it.  It was harder in your world, but. . . .  He saw our child.”

“Your—”  Belle almost laughed at the mix of emotions washing over Emma’s face.  But, happiness won out (Belle was grateful for that, even if it surprised her).  “That’s wonderful!  Will you—”

“Is it?” Belle said.  She rubbed a hand over her stomach, trying to comfort the small life within.  “Is that what your mother will say?  Is that what the Blue Fairy will say when she finds out?”

Guilt flashed over Emma’s face, but it was followed by resolution.  This was the old Emma, Belle thought, one she hadn’t seen in a long time.  “It’s what _I_ say,” Emma told her. “And anyone who thinks different is going to have to come through me.”

She meant it, Belle thought.  Perhaps, she’d even live up to it.  Belle wanted to believe her.  But, time would tell.


	32. What Comes After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant this to be the last chapter. But, the second half doesn't fit with the first, so I'm splitting it.

Rumplestilskin sat alone on the Darkling Plain, looking down at the place where the Pyramid had once been.  It was a duller place, now the Pyramid was gone.  The monsters that roamed it had, for the most part, faded away.  They hadn’t vanished, of course.  The cobbled together scraps of the curse Henry had managed to hold together to make the Pyramid had also wrapped the vermin of the underworld—small shadows, memories, and scraps of nightmares—in physical forms.  They’d been here at least as long as the Dark Ones.

He had wondered what it would feel like, having his heart crushed by Belle.  What did it feel like, being killed by the person you loved most in the world?  Would it be painless, because he was giving his life for her?  Or would it be unbearable because it was Belle destroying him?

His first death had hurt, the knife slicing into his heart.  In the living nightmares of the Underworld, he’d relived it often enough.  Yet, he also remembered the peace, knowing Belle and Bae would live.  And he remembered his father.  In those last moments, all the pain, the grief, the loss, the fear, the memory of never being what his father needed, it was all gone.

Or, it had been.  Funny the things that life brought back with it.

He hadn’t relived this second death, not yet, not outside of memory.  In memory. . . .  He was sure it hurt.  It _must_ have hurt.  But, all he could remember was Belle, drinking in this last sight of her, willing her to understand.  It wasn’t her fault.  She mustn’t feel guilty.  He would do this over and over again, every day—every _moment_ for eternity if it only meant she would be safe.

Belle.  And their child.

If there hadn’t been a child, she would have argued with him, wasting the little time they had.  Worse, she might have won, she might have outwitted him, finding some way to slip her heart into his hands.

There was a nightmare, Belle dying because of him, one he was glad he hadn’t had to face again.  He had lived through it once already and relived it more times than he could count when his memories came flooding back in Storybrooke.  Unlike the old world, he could sleep in that one.  Sometimes, it happened whether he wanted to or not.

He’d still believed Regina’s lie back then, how Maurice of the Marchlands had tortured his own child into suicide.  Because Rumplestiltskin had sent her back to him.  Because he couldn’t believe Belle would love someone like him.

Better this.  A thousand times better.  The nightmare of Belle betrayed, abandoned, _dying_ because of him—that was all it would ever be, a nightmare, and one he was glad to have woken from—even if this place was what he woke to.

Their child.  He had seen their child. 

For that, he could endure anything.

He’d kept his eyes fixed on her till the last, willing her to understand, to forgive him.  When his eyes slid shut at last, he found himself still watching her, standing by her.  She didn’t look at him, couldn’t see him.  But, it was all right.  _She_ was all right.

And, then, she was gone.

The Pyramid, the people, they were all gone, too.

The Dark Ones, alas, were still there.

He would have liked to have analyzed Henry’s spell from a purely technical angle, to learn how he had caught the Dark Ones, how they Ones had forgotten their own pasts and become the Silent Ones.  Power?  Trickery?  It would have been useful to know as they closed in one him.

The Dark Ones stopped before they reached him, answering some silent signal he hadn’t heard, making way for a single figure: Nimue.  Of course.

Even to him, the other Dark Ones looked like little more than a few ghostly rags.  Nimue had more presence than that.  He could almost imagine feet treading purposely on the hard, cold ground.  When she faced him, he could see her face, not just shadow and burning eyes.  Cold and hard, she might have been carved of dark jade. 

When Zelena’s skin had changed to that color, he’d told her it was her jealousy poisoning her.  But, he’d wondered even then if Nimue hadn’t found a new pawn to play with and what it would mean if he ever fell in her power. 

“Rumplestiltskin,” Nimue said.

He’d inclined his head ever so slightly (assuming he had something more than the memory of one that Nimue could see). No reason to start badly, he supposed. “Nimue.”

“You let them get away.”

He nodded, still respectful.  “And very cleverly, too.”

Or not so respectful.  But, pride was one thing all the Dark Ones understood.  So was hubris.

“Why? You could have returned to life with her.”

“Oh, _could_ I?” As if any of them would have let living souls slip out of their grasp.

Nimue ignored his sarcasm. “You held the better hand.  You could have bargained for what you wanted.  Instead, you threw it all away.”

Bargained.  Ah, yes.  Sacrifice half the lives here to save the others.  And pretend those lives would be worth more than a candle flame’s in the sea in a world where _they_ had been let loose.  “I got what I wanted.”

“You’re _dead,_ Rumplestiltskin.  You had the chance at eternity.  With Belle, with your grandson.  You lost it.”

“All magic comes with a price, dearie.  You just have to be willing to pay it.”

“Really?  You lost everything.  Look around you.  Was it worth it?”

“You sacrificed Merlin, the one person you loved.  Look around you.  Was it worth it?”

The illusion of her face fell away for a moment.  Only darkness and fire looked back at him.  Then, she was herself once more, her face a mask of green stone.

“You are now the youngest,” Nimue said.  She made a gesture of graceful invitation to Hook.  “Captain, you were loyal.  You did your best to free us.  You may begin.”

Rumplestiltskin had only a moment to brace himself, to remind himself that he knew this was what was waiting for him.  The Curse of the Dark Ones.  This was their punishment, they relived the memories of every loss, every cruelty.  He wondered which of Hook’s he would face first.  The times he had tried to murder Belle?  The time he had betrayed Bae to Pan?  Or any of his other murders or crimes?

Fighting was useless.  As for running, he was surrounded.  He could only endure until (as they always did), they fell to fighting among themselves, tired of waiting, finally giving him a chance to escape.

Except, nothing happened.  Hook reached out to him, and there was no pain, no memory.  Nothing but the faint, ghostly sense of another’s presence.

“I don’t understand,” Hook said.

Nimue looked at him curiously.  “Don’t you know how to do it?”

“I did it before, to Belle when we caught her.  Why can’t I do it to him?”

Nimue drifted back, reaching out to Rumplestiltskin, not quite touching.  Nothing happened except that she watched him curiously.  She turned to Hook, the same curiosity in her eyes.

No, not curiosity.  Calculation. 

She reached for Hook, again not quite touching.  Oddly, Rumplestiltskin found could see the pirate’s face.  His pale skin was growing paler.  Their forms were just illusions, memories.  But, could illusions show fear?

“Strange,” Nimue said. “You remain the latest link in the chain.  Rumplestiltskin has not displaced you.”

Hook backed away.  “I served you.  I did everything I could.  It’s not my fault—”

“Of course not,” Nimue said.  “You did your best.  But, it’s the nature of the curse.  It doesn’t understand trying or fault or service.  It just is.” She looked at Rumplestiltskin.  “You have never passed on your pain before, have you?  You are welcome to go first.”

“Thank you, but no.”

“Conscience?  You’ll get over that soon enough.”

“Greed.  They may hurt but they’re still mine.  My past.  My memories.  I won’t share them with _him._ ”

Nimue looked amused.  “As you wish.  When you change your mind, you’ll know where to find him.”

She nodded to the others.  They swarmed past Rumplestiltskin, engulfing Hook.

Rumplestiltskin turned and left, reminding himself that even sound, in this world, was only another illusion.  The screams he heard were no more real than when he’d been the one making them. 

It was a long time before they ended, before the ragged ghost that was Hook could make his escape, before the rest of the Dark Ones drifted away, waiting for their next chance.  Only Rumplestiltskin remained, sitting at the edge of the plain, remembering what was lost.


	33. The Person Behind You

Zoso enjoyed it as his . . . he supposed it was claiming too much to call him his protégé.  His successor? His _chosen_ successor walked away from Nimue.

He had chosen better than he knew when he picked the spinner.  He’d told himself at the time he was being careful, that he was picking a better man than the duke would ever be.  But, beggars couldn’t be choosers.  Desperate souls were rampant during the Ogre War.  Desperate souls who he could shape to his ends were rarer.

Zoso had been certain—well, _almost_ certain—Rumplestiltskin would never send children to the front, would never serve the duke.  No matter how quickly the curse began to eat away at him and warp his soul, those were two lines he was (almost) sure Rumplestiltskin wouldn’t cross.

Rumplestiltskin had done more than that.  He’d stopped the war and held onto some corner of his soul longer than any other Dark One in memory.

Zoso had made the right choice, picking him.

He spoke to him not long after.  Rumplestiltskin was looking down where the Pyramid used to be, brooding.  He barely glanced at Zoso as he came closer.

“You never made me suffer through your memories,” Rumplestiltskin said.  “Why?”

Of all the questions Rumplestiltskin might have asked, that was the last Zoso expected.  “That’s what you want to know?”

“Were you expecting something else?”

“Why I helped you?  Why I didn’t try to trade places with one of the living?” And why Rumplestiltskin had trusted him to help him and not trap a mortal here in his place.

“Oh, but I know the answer to that, dearie.  I saw you three hundred years ago, the first time you traded places with me.  You didn’t want to go on living then, not at the price we pay, and I don’t think you’ve changed your mind since.”

A poet had once said it was better to be a slave in the hut of a landless man than prince among the dead.  But, he’d never been dead—or the slave of the dagger.

“Your memories,” Rumplestiltskin pressed.  “Why?”

“The same reason you gave Nimue,” Zoso said. “They’re mine.  The guilt for what I did, that’s mine, too.”

“Even the Ogre War?  When the duke held the dagger?  Is it right for you to pay for that?” Rumplestiltskin didn’t sound like he was arguing.  He sounded curious, like a scholar discussing a bit of abstract theory.

“Maybe not,” Zoso said.  “But, who else can?  Besides, there are things that need to be remembered.” 

Rumplestiltskin looked out at the empty land where a small haven of life had once stood.  “And if there are things that need to be forgotten?”

“Well, Hook couldn’t do that for me, either.”

X

The Underworld was as it had always been now the living were gone.  Zoso found himself wandering to the farther corners, avoiding the others.  For the most part, the Dark Ones tended to cluster together.  So far, Nimue seemed to be ignoring his part in what happened, but he didn’t trust that to last.  Rumplestiltskin might be too powerful for her to come after, even in death, but Zoso wasn’t.  He hadn’t met anyone looking for him—yet.

He found the empty city at the edge of their world.  Most avoided it and the madness it seeded in them.  Now and then, some sought it out, desperate for what it could offer.  Zoso had never been one of them before.  It was a place of memories, not like the ones that haunted all the Dark Ones.  It wasn’t that there was no pain here, just that it was a different kind of pain.  The whole place was a lie, he’d told himself, a trap like everything else in this world.  It offered its baited hook and laughed at the pain of any foolish enough to take it.

Now, he chose to come here.

He passed through the empty rooms, hearing the murmur of voices always somewhere just out of sight.  He saw the shadows, the glimpse of people out of the corner of his eye, reflections in glass and polished stone.  But, when he turned to see, when he rushed just around a corner following voices, he found only emptiness and dust.

And his own memories haunted him.

He relived the lives of children, terrified and confused as they were thrown out into battle, became soldiers dying of septic wounds.  There were also the days before his captivity, days of anger and revenge, striking out at those who’d wronged him or who he only thought had wronged him.

Even the duke, the man he’d sent Rumplestiltskin up against, that he’d stolen the dagger from, he relived his death.  After all, without Zoso, Rumplestiltskin would have never gone after him.

There was Leith, a boy coming up on fifteen when the Duke lowered the conscription age again.  Despite his age, his voice hadn’t changed yet.  He’d told himself he wasn’t afraid, that he had fought off wolves that tried to carry away his family’s sheep, and how much different could this be than that?  The Ogres were monsters, yes, but that only meant they were beasts.  He had faced beasts before.  He was human and he would be quick and clever.

That was what he was still telling himself when the commander gave the order for them to charge, weapons drawn.  He was whispering the words, “Just beasts, just beasts,” as the Ogre’s spiked club swept him aside.

And there was Gruach, a Frontlands woman who had seen all her children taken, one by one, to fight in the war.  She had tried to fight the soldiers sent to seize them.  Zoso, unable to fight the dagger’s command, had left her writhing on the ground.  When word came of the last one’s death, Gruach had walked down to the river and drowned.

He saw men who had mocked him before his rise to power, he saw fools who had thought they could get the better of him in a deal.  A parade of innocents and not-so-innocents.  Whether they lived, whether they died didn’t matter.  Zoso lived through every wrong, every moment of pain and suffering he had caused.

Terror.  Pain.  Death.  He relived them all in more variations than he could count. 

And, then, it would stop, and he would get up and wander through the empty city again.  He couldn’t say why it drew him.  It was an illusion, a lie.  If he saw images reflected in a glass, men and women he had known, they would not be there when he turned around to find them. 

Like the curse itself, he thought. It promised everything and offered nothing.

One day (if that had any meaning in a land of eternal night), he found an obelisk.  It was in a plaza.  Empty, broken flower pots lay around it.  It was marble, a mix of black and white polished as bright and clear as any mirror.  When he went closer and looked in it, he could see people walking back and forth on the streets behind him.  He saw flowers in bloom and trees thick with leaves.  Some of the faces he recognized from long ago.  Others were strangers to him.

He forced himself not to look around.

Holding still, something happened that had never happened before.  One by one, the people behind him began to drift over to where he was.  At first, it seemed like the idle movements of a crowd.   A man came and stood here, a woman came and stood there.  A few others gathered, looking into what, for him, was an empty, dust covered shop.  They began to crowd around him, leaving no room for escape.

Zoso looked into their reflected eyes.  The memories hit him.  This was a child who had fought in the Ogre War.  He’d survived but lost his arm when the wound turned septic.  But, that was nothing compared to the nightmares he suffered the rest of his life of his friends cut down on the battlefield, the sounds of the screams, the taste of blood in his mouth.

There was a woman who had angered him.  He’d turned her into a crow, cursing her to find her sustenance among the dead till the curse was broken.

A word from the duke or from his own temper and his magic destroyed their lives.  Some screamed in agony, some wept, some sat numb in empty.  None escaped.

 _I’m sorry,_ he thought.  _I’m so sorry._

He knew he’d been cursed.  He knew that, if he had been free of it, he would have made different choices. 

Or maybe not.  Maybe, with power to do whatever he wanted and no one to hold him accountable, he’d have done exactly the same, avenging old slights and wrongs, punishing anyone who’d ever looked at him wrong.  It didn’t take a curse to be evil.  Look at the duke.

Maybe he’d do everything exactly the same.  But, if there were anyone— witch, or sorcerer, or cursed fairy—who could grant him his wish, he wouldn’t.  If he could reach into the past without fear of reliving it, being swallowed up by old angers and grudges, he would rewrite it so none of these things happened. 

_I would carve out my own heart if that would change what I did.  I would offer my flesh and bones to make a bridge if it would let you escape._

But, even if he could, he didn’t know if his heart and bones would be strong enough.  All he could do was stand there and whisper the words, “I’m sorry.  Forgive me, if you can.”

One of the figures behind him reached out as if she were going to put her hand on his shoulder.

Zoso felt the weight as it touched him, he felt the faint warmth through what would have been the tattered cloth of his cloak.

_It’s not real.  None of this is real.  I’m nothing but a memory wrapped up in imagined tatters. . . ._

“Zoso.”

He reached up and felt warm skin, not dead and cold.

_Illusions, lies.  That’s what this place does to you.  It shows you memories you can almost reach._

Fingers tightened around his.  “Zoso, turn around.  Look at me.”

“It’s not real.”

“Please, Zoso, look at me.”

He turned, expecting her to be gone or to transform into some kind of monster, a rotting corpse, a memory of every life he had ever ruined.  Instead, he saw a young woman.  Her hair was honey-blond, and there was something about her face that was familiar.  He knew her, one of the last victims he’d sent to the Ogre War. 

He remembered her, had seen her memories of those few, terrifying days before battle, the hasty scraps of instruction the other survivors had given her in the crude weapons she’d been issued.  She’d tried to listen, to learn, knowing it couldn’t possibly be enough.  “Morraine.”

She gave him a more open, friendly smile than anyone who’d lived through those horrors should have been able to give.  “You know me.”

“I don’t understand.  Why are you here?  _How_ are you here?  The Pyramid—We sent it back.  We sent everyone back.”

“Don’t worry.  No one was left behind.  I was dead long before they came here.”

“Dead?  Rumplestiltskin.  He was supposed to save you. . . .”

“He did.  That’s what you wanted him to do, wasn’t it?  You couldn’t save us yourself, but you helped him do it.”

“It wasn’t enough.  For what I did, it was never enough.”

There was a man standing near her.  “It never is,” he said ruefully.  “Trust me, I know.  You make mistakes.  People get hurt.  You think you’re going to fix it, but things happened you never saw coming, stuff you don’t even know how to start setting right.  And, then, it’s over, and all you’ve got is what you did, not what you wanted to do.”

“That’s not what matters,” Morraine said firmly. “Not now.  Zoso, you did what you could. You’d do more if you could.  And you’re sorry. “

“It’s easy to say _sorry_ ,” Zoso said bitterly.

“Not when you mean it,” Morraine said. “Not when you wish you could change all the mistakes you made, but you can’t.  All you can do is say you’re sorry, and you know how small that is.”  She looked at the man for support.

“She’s right,” he said.  “Admitting you messed up, that it’s all on you but you can’t fix it,  that can be the hardest thing in the world.”

“It _is_ too small,” Zoso said.  “But, all right, I’ve said it.  Is that what you came to hear?”

Morraine looked grave. “I came because I’m one of the children you sent to war, because you tortured my parents when they tried to stop you, and because you died trying to set it right.  I came because I’m one of the people who can tell you it’s all right, now, and I forgive you.”

Zoso remembered all the pain, all the memories.  Not just Morraine’s pain, everyone’s.  “It’s not ‘all right,’” he said. “I can’t change what happened.  I can’t fix it.  It will never be ‘all right.’”

“On that side of death, you can’t,” Morraine said. “There are some wounds that never heal while you’re alive.  It’s different here.  Besides, you’re not the one who gets to decide if we forgive you.  It’s already been decided for you.”

Zoso bit back an angry retort.  _Forgiveness._ The word was salt on old wounds.  He didn’t deserve it and, no matter what Morraine said, he couldn’t have it.  But, that wasn’t as important as what else she’d said.  “They heal?  For you, for the others?  Your—your pain,” (He almost called it your _memories_ , but remembered that wouldn’t mean the same thing to her) “There’s an end to it?”

Morraine nodded soberly.  “There’s an end.  We still remember, but the memories don’t hurt.”

Did she mean it?  _There’s an end.  It came late for them but, finally, the children are free._

“Thank you,” he whispered.  “I don’t know how you came here to tell me—” Here, to this hellhole.  He didn’t know what the others could do to dead souls that wandered into their world, but it couldn’t be good.  Still, he needed to say it again.  “Thank you.  But, you need to get out of here before the others find you.”  And it was all right, he thought.  Even if _he_ still lived through the memories, _they_ didn’t.  The evil he’d done had an end.  They were free.

Morraine laughed.  It was an innocent, carefree laugh that destroyed any last doubts he had that Morraine, at least, was free of the past.  In the living world, the terrified girl Hordak had ridden away with could never have ever laughed like this again.  “We’re not leaving you there,” Morraine said. “We can’t.  You’ve already left them.”

That was when Zoso looked around him.  The Underworld was gone.  There was a blue sky above him.  Sunlight shone over a grassy park.  Flowers and trees dotted the landscape, and he could hear birds singing.

“How. . . ?”

“You asked for forgiveness and you were given it.”  She took his hand.  “Now, it’s time to come home.”  She looked questioningly at the other man. 

“You go ahead,” he said.  “I still have stuff to do.  I’ll catch up with you later.”

“Don’t forget,” she said. “I’ll want to see both of you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll mention it.”

X

Time in that place was hard to judge.  Minutes might have passed or hours.  It might have been eons.  From the edge of the park, the man could see what the Dark Ones had called the empty city.  He waited till another figure wandered into its streets.

The newcomer couldn’t see the man or any of the others who wandered into the city.  No, that wasn’t quite true.  He caught glimpses of them, now and then.  They would speak, and he would come running, looking for them, never seeing them.

The man never gave up.  He kept following the other.  Till, one day, the other stopped by what, to him, must have looked like a ruined fountain.  But, somehow, he must have seen a reflection in it.  Or, maybe, it was only a wish or a memory.  The man remembered what they said in a land that claimed to have no magic, how a wish could be made into a fountain and come true.

“I’m sorry,” the other said.  “Oh, Bae, I’m so sorry.  I don’t know if you can ever forgive me but I am so sorry.”

The man reached out his hand.  “Papa,” he whispered.

The other froze.

“Papa, it’s all right.  It’s me.  It’s Baelfire.”

His father turned, seeing him, not believing.  “No, it can’t be.  It can’t. . . .  Bae?”

Baelfire grabbed his father in a bear hug.  “It’s me, Papa. I’ve been waiting for you. You did good.  ” He said the words he’d wanted to say since he lost his father three hundred years ago, the words behind all the anger and the hurt.  “Welcome home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to write this as just Rumplestiltskin's meeting with Bae but could never make it more than a few lines long, and it never had the impact it was supposed to. I also meant Zoso to have his way out of the Underworld. So . . . hope this ending works. I may still do a follow up with Belle and her child, but this is where the story ends.
> 
> If there's anything else you need to know about what happens to the characters that I forgot to deal with, let me know. Thank you for sticking with me through this. I appreciate all your support. It's meant a lot to me.


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